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library 

Institute  of  Industrial  r.Blatior,. 

University  of  Cr.Ufonaa 


TRADE  UNIONISM  IN 
THE  UNITED  STATES 


TRADE  UNIONISM  IN  THE 
UNITED  STATES 


BY 

ROBERT  FRANKLIN  HOXIE,  Ph.D. 

ONE  TIME  ASSOCIATE  PROFESSOR  OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMT, 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO 

ADTBOB  OF  "SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  AND  LABOR*' 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION 

BY 

E.  H.   DOWNEY,   Ph.D. 

BPKCIAL  DEPUTY  OF  THE  INSURANCE  COMMISSION  OF  PENNSYLVANIA 

IN  CHARGE  OF  WORKMEN'S  COMPENSATION  INSURANCE, 

LATE  CHIEF  STATISTICIAN  OF  THE  INDUSTRIAL 

COMMISSION  OF  WISCONSIN 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YOBK  LONDON 

1921 


COPTRIQHT,   1917,  By 

1\  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY: 


Printed  in  the  UnitecJ  States  of  America 


Itet.  lndu& 


HD 


The  main  reason  for  teaching,  to  me,  is  to  open  the 
students'  minds  to  the  possibility  of  questioning  the 
fundamentals  of  current  thinking.  I  want  to  turn  out 
men  who  cannot  be  led  naively  by  current  judgments 
but  who  will  subject  these  judgments  to  tests  based  on 
the  validity  of  their  underlying  assumptions — in  short, 
socially  sophisticated,  thinking  men. 

R.  F.  H. 


60279G 

mST.  INDUS.  REL. 


PREFACE 

The  book  here  presented  is  the  result  of  an  effort  to 
reproduce  as  faithfully  as  possible  the  notes  and  lectures 
on  Trade  Unionism  used  by  Robert  F.  Hoxie  during  his 
last  year  of  teaching  in  the  University  of  Chicago,  and  to 
combine  them  with  some  of  his  chapters  previously  pub- 
lished. 

This  material  had  been  prepared  by  him  without  thought 
of  publication  in  this  form.  Only  lack  of  time  prevented  the 
reorganization  of  it  and  much  rewriting  before  it  was 
again  used  in  the  classroom  when  in  the  fall  of  191 5  he 
resumed  teaching  after  a  year  of  study  and  investigation  of 
the  relations  of  labor  and  scientific  management.  In  view 
of  these  facts  it  was  a  question  whether  the  notes  could  be 
published  without  injustice  to  one  in  whom  the  love  of 
thoroughness  and  perfection  was  a  ruling  passion.  But 
doubt  on  this  point  was  set  at  rest  by  those  to  whom  a  first 
copy  of  the  manuscript  was  submitted,  who  were  unani- 
mously of  the  opinion  that  notwithstanding  its  incomplete- 
ness and  the  fact  that  its  author  would  have  made  great 
changes  before  embodying  any  portion  of  it  in  the  book 
on  Trade  Unionism,  to  which  he  looked  forward  as  the 
main  work  of  coming  years,  there  was  in  the  notes  value 
which  altogether  justified  their  publication. 

Largely  owing  to  the  method  of  study  and  teaching  which 
Mr.  Downey,  in  the  Introduction,  has  described  and  to  the 
nature  of  the  social  laboratory  which  Trade  Unionism 
offers,  it  has  not  been  possible  to  use  all  the  notes,  nor  to 
present  without  gaps  the  systematic  treatment  of  the  sub- 
ject and  its  whole  foundation  of  evidence  which  the  class 
received  and  which  a  reader  of  the  completed  text  would 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

have  had.  Nevertheless,  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  fill 
in  the  gaps  by  introducing  material  worked  out  by  another 
hand. 

The  work  of  preparing  the  manuscript  for  the  printer 
has  consisted  mainly  in  bringing  the  material  together  into 
chapters,  using  for  this  purpose  the  author's  course  outline 
and  titles.  There  were  many  pages  in  the  form  of  speaker's 
notes.  Where  these  were  full  enough  t^  be  used  they  were 
drawn  together  by  a  word,  or,  rarely,  a  sentence  for  the 
sake  of  clearness  and  form.  The  major  portion  of  the 
book,  however,  is  a  word  for  word  transcription. 

Certain  omissions  were  necessary.  It  was  found  im- 
possible to  use  in  Chapter  IV  some  of  the  historical  notes 
which  had  been  gathered  for  the  verification  of  the  hypothe- 
sis of  functional  types  in  Chapter  III.  Some  notes  con- 
cerning men  and  situations  in  the  union  movement  it  was 
necessary  to  omit  as  of  a  nature  too  intimate  or  personal 
for  publication ;  also  those  on  the  discussion  of  the  current 
events  of  unionism,  of  little  importance  in  themselves.  As 
far  as  possible,  repetitions  due  to  pedagogical  requirements 
have  been  left  out,  but  in  several  cases,  such  as  in  the 
reconsideration  of  the  functional  group  theory  in  "Social 
Control"  after  its  statement  in  the  "Problem,"  or  the  state- 
ment of  the  classical  economic  theory  of  society-  first  in 
"Employers'  Associations,"  and  again  in  "Social  Control," 
the  restatement  has  been  too  closely  interwoven  with  the 
fabric  of  the  chapter  to  be  dispensed  with. 

On  the  other  hand  there  have  been  some  additions  to  the 
material  of  the  Trade  Union  course  proper.  Preceding  the 
work  on  Trade  Unions  in  191 5,  Mr.  Hoxie  gave  a  course 
on  Labor  Conditions  and  Problems,  which  served  as  an 
introduction  for  the  trade  union  work.  From  the  notes  on 
this  course  have  been  included  the  discussion  of  social 
theories  found  in  the  chapter  on  "Social  Control."  A  course 
on  Scientific  Management  and  Labor  Welfare  in  the  spring 
of   1916  carried  forward  the  consideration  of  the  theory 


PREFACE  ix 

of  unionism  and  the  attitude  of  organized  labor  into  the 
field  of  "the  latest  phase  of  capitalistic  industrial  develop- 
ment," and  showed  the  program  of  unionism  in  action.  For 
this  purpose  the  lecture  on  the  "Economic  Program"  was 
written.  The  ground  of  the  remaining  notes  on  this  course 
was  covered  by  Mr.  Hoxie's  last  articles,  "Scientific  Man- 
agement and  Labor  Welfare,"  Journal  of  Political  Economy, 
vol.  XXIV,  pp.  833-854,  and  "Why  Organized  Labor  Op- 
poses Scientific  Management,"  Quarterly  Journal  of  Eco- 
nomics, vol.  XXXII,  pp.  62-85.  These  have  been  used  as 
Chapters  XII  and  XIII. 

In  Chapter  VI,  for  the  notes  on  the  Industrial  Workers 
of  the  World  and  Syndicalism,  have  been  substituted  "The 
Truth  About  the  I.  W.  W.,"  Journal  of  Political  Economy, 
vol.  XXI,  pp.  785-797,  and  a  portion  of  a  discussion  of 
Mr.  J.  G.  Brooks'  paper  on  Syndicalism  before  the  American 
Economic  Association,  American  Economic  Review  Supple- 
ment, IV,  no.  I,  136-144.  The  last  part  of  this  chapter, 
the  discussion  of  revolutionary  unionism,  is  one  of  three 
lectures  delivered  in  the  spring  of  1914  at  the  University  of 
Michigan.  Chapters  II  and  III,  "General  Character  and 
Types,"  and  "The  Essence  of  Unionism  and  the  Interpreta- 
tion of  Union  Types,"  are  from  the  Journal  of  Political 
Economy,  vol.  XXII.  pp.  201-217,  464-487,  and  were  the 
first  articles  of  the  projected  series  on  "Trade  Unionism  in 
the  United  States,"  begun  in  1914.  Finally,  there  have  been 
added  "Notes  on  Method."  The  first  of  these,  "Historical 
Method  vs.  Historical  Narrative,"  Journal  of  Political  Econ- 
omy, vol.  XIV.,  pp.  568-572,  was  uniformly  used  in  the  con- 
sideration of  the  method  to  be  followed  in  the  study  of 
unionism.  Mr.  Hoxie's  own  writing  was  a  "practical  ap- 
plication of  the  methods  outlined  in  it,"  and  he  evidently  re- 
garded it,  Professor  Hamilton  thinks  {Journal  of  Political 
Economy,  vol.  XXIV,  p.  878),  "as  the  first  article  of  his 
trade  union  series." 

While  the  body  of  the  trade  union  notes  is  a  growth  of 


X  PREFACE 

several  years,  the  larger  part  of  the  book  is  the  product 
of  the  last  two  or  three.  Chapters  XI  to  XIV  inclusive  are 
the  work  of  1915-1916.  Chapters  II,  III,  IV,  and  part  of 
Chapter  VI  were  written  in  1914.  The  notes  themselves 
were  reorganized  and  partly  rewritten  in  1913. 

In  the  preparation  of  these  notes  and  lectures  for  publi- 
cation many  have  borne  a  part.  For  encouragement  and 
for  varied  assistance  most  cordial  thanks  are  due  to  several 
of  the  author's  friends,  to  officers  of  the  University,  to  his 
colleagues  in  the  department  of  Economics  and  his  students. 
Professors  Henry  W.  Stuart,  Walton  H.  Hamilton,  Harry 
A.  Millis  and  Mr.  E.  H.  Downey  have  given  the  manuscript 
careful  reading  and  offered  valuable  advice ;  Professor 
Addison  W.  Moore  has  given  helpful  suggestions  on  the 
chapter  on  "Employers'  Associations,"  and  Mr.  John  P. 
Frey  on  "Present  Union  Groups,"  and  "Leaders  and  the 
Rank  and  File;"  Miss  Leona  M.  Powell,  Mr.  Dwight  San- 
derson, Miss  Frieda  Miller,  and  Miss  Mollie  Ray  Carroll, 
former  students,  have  been  consulted  on  some  points. 
Miss  Powell's  class  notes  have  been  used  for  reference 
throughout  the  work  and  Miss  Carroll  has  cooperated  in 
the  preparation  of  "The  Trade  Union  Program." 

Especial  and  grateful  acknowledgment  must  be  made  of 
the  generous  assistance  and  helpful  advice  in  the  work  of 
editing  given  by  Professor  John  R.  Commons,  who  has  also 
read  the  manuscript  in  its  final  form,  and  by  Professor 
Alvin  S.  Johnson,  who  has  assisted  in  the  revision  of  the 
proof. 

Permission  to  use  material  already  in  print  has  been  kindly 
granted  by  the  editors  of  the  Journal  of  Political  Economy, 
of  the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  and  of  the  American 
Economic  Review, 

Lucy  B.  Hoxie. 
Nathan  Fine. 


INTRODUCTION^ 

Like  all  social  movements  which  excite  the  hopes  and 
fears  of  men,  trade  unionism  has  more  often  been  the  object 
of  passionate  denunciation  or  defense  than  of  scientific  in- 
quiry. It  is  not  simply  that  unionism  counts  some  three 
million  adherents  in  the  United  States  alone  and  directly 
affects  the  wages  and  working  conditions  of  perhaps  an 
equal  number  who  stand  outside  its  official  membership; 
nor  simply  that  it  interferes  with  the  profits  of  employers 
and  with  their  assumed  right  to  manage  business  enterprises 
in  their  own  way ;  it  touches  intimately  the  life  and  work 
of  millions  of  families;  it  is  able  to  create  profound  dis- 
turbances in  that  intricate  web  of  economic  relationships 
wherein  the  tissue  of  business  life  consists,  amounting  upon 
occasion  to  a  dramatic  interruption  in  the  flow  of  goods 
and  services  without  which  no  modern  community  can  sub- 
sist; more  than  all  else,  it  calls  in  question  some  of  the 
most  fundamental  presuppositions  of  present  day  law  and 
order.  For  ours  is,  in  great  part,  a  business  man's  govern- 
ment, and  our  codes  of  law  embody  the  business  man's 
rules  of  the  game.  The  business  man's  right  to  employ  or 
discharge  whom  he  will,  to  fix  the  rate  and  mode  of  pay- 
ment and  the  hours  and  conditions  of  work  at  his  own  dis- 
cretion, to  set  industry  in  motion  or  break  off  the  produc- 
tive process  whenever  he  sees  his  own  advantage  in  so  do- 
ing, and  without  responsibility  for  the  livelihood  of  the  in- 
dustrial population — these  rights  are  involved  in  the  legal 

^  The  extent  of  the  writer's  indebtedness  to  Professors  Hoxie 
and  Veblen,  in  respect  to  general  standpoint  and  even  phrase- 
ology, will  be  obvious  to  all. 

xi 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

conceptions  of  private  property  and  free  enterprise;  they 
are  recognized  by  the  common  law  and  the  co^^stitution;  in 
support  of  them  the  business  man  can  appeal  to  the  courts, 
the  police  and  even  the  military  arm  of  the  state.  A  chal- 
lenge to  these  prerogatives  of  business  enterprise  is  in 
some  sort  a  challenge  to  the  existing  social  organization ;  by 
traversing  them  unionism  moves  the  passionate  opposition, 
not  alone  of  those  whose  pecuniary  interests  are  directly  at 
stake,  but  of  social  groups  who  are  only  remotely  affected 
and  whose  attachment  to  the  capitalistic  system  derives 
mainly  from  tradition.  Disinterestedness  in  such  a  question 
is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  absence  of  bias ;  the  received 
institutions  of  any  society  are  so  charged  with  emotional 
content  that  an  impartial  view  of  them  can  only  be  attained 
by  those  who  are  acquainted  with  institutional  history. 
Hence  we  see,  not  alone  the  thoughtless  multitude,  but  law- 
yers and  clergymen,  economists  and  social  workers,  take 
sides  for  or  against  unionism  accordingly  as  their  training 
and  associations  have  given  them  more  of  the  wage  earn- 
er's or  of  the  business  man's  point  of  view.  ^ 

Even  those  who  are  able  to  dissociate  themselves  from 
class  prejudices  and  from  the  fundamental  assumptions 
of  the  existing  social  order  find  it  no  easy  matter  to  as- 
certain so  much  as  the  objective  facts  of  unionism.  The 
American  labor  movement  has  a  history  of  above  one  hun- 
dred years.  It  is  diffused  through  thousands  of  local  units 
and  presents  a  bewildering  variety  of  structure,  policies, 
aims  and  ideals.  The  original  sources  of  information,  per- 
sonal and  documentary,  union  and  anti-union,  are  fragmen- 
tal,  contradictory,  widely  scattered,  often  difficult  of  access, 
nearly  always  strongly  partisan,  sometimes  even  willfully 
misleading.  Much  of  the  record — and  that  by  no  means 
the  least  important  part — was  never  committed  to  paper; 
most  of  what  has  been  preserved  consists  of  ephemeral 

1  For  illustrations  see  the  various  pamphlets  of  the  National 
Manufacturers'  Association. 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

pamphlets  and  news  items,  commonly  of  a  propagandist 
character.  To  sift  out  the  significant  facts  from  this  mass 
of  ex  parte  evidence,  to  distinguish  the  typical  from  the  ex- 
ceptional, and  to  arrange  the  whole  in  just  order  and  pro- 
portion, is  a  task  which  the  combined  labor  of  many  scho- 
lars has  not  sufficed  to  accomplish.  Least  of  all  has  the 
obscurity  been  cleared  away  from  that  elusive  mass  of  be- 
liefs, sentiments,  ideals  and  aspirations  touching  economic 
relationships  which  go  to  make  up  the  social  philosophy 
of  unionism  and  which  account  for  much  of  its  significance 
to  unionists  themselves  and  to  society  at  large. 

Yet  it  is  not  enough  to  obtain  a  dispassionate  view  or 
even  to  ascertain  the  objective  facts.  Fruitful  understand- 
ing of  any  social  movement  depends  not  alone  upon  know- 
ledge of  the  features  peculiar  to  it,  but  upon  the  ability  to 
relate  those  features  to  social  phenomena  of  a  more  general 
character,  to  disentangle  the  relevant  circumstances  out  of 
which  the  particular  movement  arose,  to  set  forth  the  effi- 
cient causes  which  shaped  its  growth  and  to  show  what  it  is 
becoming  under  the  influence  of  forces  which  are  currently 
at  work  within  it  or  which  impinge  upon  it.  For  group 
action  is  conditioned  by  group  thought  and  group  thought 
depends  in  turn  upon  group  experience,  so  that  any  useful 
study  of  a  social  movement,  more  particularly  of  a  class 
movement,  necessarily  becomes  a  genetic  inquiry  into  group 
psychology.  Such  an  inquiry,  however,  is  at  once  confront- 
ed by  all  those  obstacles  which  derive  from  the  present  rudi- 
m„entary  state  of  social  science.  The  student  of  unionism, 
of  political  parties  or  of  business  enterprise,  must  make 
use  of  many  generalizations  which  have  yet  to  be  estab- 
lished— among  them  the  origin  and  functioning  of  social 
classes,  the  role  of  class  conflict  in  the  life  of  communities 
and  the  relative  weight  of  heredity  and  choice,  of  tradition 
and  personal  experience,  and  of  economics  and  general  so- 
cial environment  in  determining  institutional  growth  and 
decay.    Where  so  little  can  be  taken  as  securely  given,  the 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

labor  of  research  is  n^ultipHed  many  fold,  for  the  investi- 
gator of  each  special  field  must  needs  formulate  even  the 
general  social  theories  in  terms  of  which  the  phenomena 
under  his  immediate  observation  are  to  be  interpreted. 

For  all  these  reasons  the  making  of  many  books  has 
afforded  comparatively  little  insight  into  the  nature  and 
causes  of  American  trade  unionism.  Those  v^ho  know  most 
about  the  subject  can  scarcely  be  expected  to  furnish  a  de- 
tached view  or  to  interpret  the  concrete  facts  in  terms  of 
social  science  at  large.  Of  those  who  have  surveyed  the  move- 
ment from  without,  many  have  been  disqualified  by  want 
of  knowledge  or  trammeled  by  narrowing  preconceptions. 
Some  have  poured  forth  a  flood  of  pious  sentiment,  often 
effective  as  homiletics  but  not  particularly  illuminating; 
some  have  given  a  purely  economic  interpretation  and  been 
thereby  constrained  to  ignore  important  elements  of  their 
problem ;  others  have  thought  it  sufficient  to  show  that  cer- 
tain trade  union  activities  do  not  jump  with  orthodox  econ- 
omic theory  or  with  received  notions  of  property  and  free 
contract.  Others,  still,  have  thought  to  achieve  a  purely 
objective  treatment  by  eschewing  all  interpretation.  The 
result  of  this  last  endeavor  is  a  mass  of  narrative  and 
descriptive  literature,  useful  enough  as  the  raw  material 
of  scientific  inquiry,  but,  in  its  present  form,  valueless  as 
a  basis  for  social  action.  Few,  out  of  patient  research,  have 
brought  forth  even  a  partial  interpretation  in  causal  terms. 
Among  this  elect  number  Professor  Hoxie  will  hold  a  high 
and  secure  place. 

To  the  baffling  subject  with  which  his  best  work  is  so 
closely  identified.  Professor  Hoxie  brought  a  very  excep- 
tional equipment.  Trained  originally  in  the  straitest  sect  of 
cloister  economics,  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  escape  its  in- 
fluence before  his  teachers  had  succeeded  in  dulling  his 
appetite  for  reality.  In  the  net  result,  indeed,  he  profited 
even  from  the  metaphysicians,  for  they  did  but  sharpen  a 
keenly  analytic  mind  upon  the  subtleties  of  marginal  utili- 


INTRODUCTiON  xv 

tarianism.  Falling  next  under  the  potent  spell  of  Thorstein 
Veblen,  he  acquired  the  genetic  standpoint,  a  wide  acquain- 
tance with  cultural  history  and  an  abiding  interest  in  insti- 
tutional development.  After  this  varied  apprenticeship  he 
devoted  himself  for  the  space  of  more  than  ten  years  to  an 
intensive  study  of  American  trade  unionism.  The  litera- 
ture of  the  subject,  propagandist  and  scientific,  union  and 
anti-union,  he  made  his  own ;  but  it  was  the  living  move- 
ment that  chiefly  held  his  interest.  By  painstaking  analy- 
sis of  documentary  sources,  by  persistent  attendance  at 
union  and  employers'  meetings,  by  personal  interviews  with 
scores  of  union  and  employers'  leaders,  above  all  by  long 
continued  and  intimate  contact  with  unionists  of  many  types, 
he  strove  to  ascertain  the  objective  facts  of  unionism,  to  ex- 
plain the  causes  which  have  shaped  the  movement  and 
■uch  are  progressively  changing  it,  to  determine  its  drift, 

d  to  define  its  meaning  for  the  community  life  of  which 
.  is  a  part.  In  the  course  of  this  study  he  was  led  into 
many  fields  of  inquiry — wage  theory,  socialism,  pragmatic 
philosophy,  social  psychology,  employers'  associations  and 
scientific  management.  But  unionism  remained  always  his 
central  problem;  to  it  he  returned  with  fresh  zest  after  each 
excursus,  and  upon  it  all  his  other  studies  were  made  to 
bear. 

To  expound  Professor  Hoxie's  trade  union  views  at 
length,  or  attempt  a  detailed  appraisal,  would  far  overpass 
the  reasonable  limits  of  an  introduction.  It  may  be  worth 
while,  however,  to  indicate  his  outlook  and  the  main  results 
to  which  it  led  him.  It  has  already  been  said  that  he  ap- 
proached his  subject  from  the  genetic  standpoint,  by  which 
is  meant  that  he  aimed  at  a  reasoned  explanation  of  trade 
unionism  in  terms  of  the  efficient  causes  which  have  made 
the  movement  what  it  is,  and  is  becoming.  Seen  from  this 
point  of  view  a  union  is  not  so  much  an  outward  organi- 
zation as  a  like-minded  group.  The  effectual  bond  which 
unites  a  body  of  wageworkers  is  not  a  constitution  and 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

by-laws,  a  set  of  officers  and  a  treasury,  but  a  conscious- 
ness of  common  needs  and  aims,  a  common  outlook  on  life, 
and  a  common  program  for  the  betterment  of  their  lot.  To 
employ  Professor  Hoxie's  terminology,  the  essence  of 
unionism  is  a  social  philosophy — an  interpretation  of  the  so- 
cial facts  and  relationships  which  impinge  upon  the  group 
in  question,  and  a  solution  of  the  practical  problems  which 
these  present.  The  interpretation  miay  be  wide  or  narrow, 
explicitly  formulated  or  implicit  and  ill  defined;  the  pro- 
gram may  concern  itself  solely  with  conditions  of  employ- 
ment or  it  may  look  to  the  economic  and  political  regenera- 
tion of  society.  Some  social  philosophy,  however,  more  or 
less  consistent  and  far-reaching,  and  some  generally  ac- 
cepted scheme  of  policies  and  methods,  are  the  sine  qua  non 
of  common  action. 

This  method  of  approach  led  Professor  Hoxie  to  a  .  e 
ception  of  unionism  which  differs  in  important  resp  r<. 
from  the  views  current  in  the  schools.  Others  have  cop. 
ously  illustrated  the  structural  details  and  the  narrative  his- 
tory of  union  organizations,  have  set  forth  the  environ- 
nxental,  more  especially  the  economic,  factors  which  have 
contributed  to  union  growth  and  decay,  and  have  told  us 
much  of  the  social  creeds  which  unions  impose  upon  their 
members,  but  they  have  had  little  to  say  of  the  human 
materials  out  of  which  unions  are  formed  or  of  the  mani- 
fold influences  which  go  to  shape  trade  union  beliefs,  ideals 
and  aspirations.  Professor  Hoxie  early  focused  his  at- 
tention upon  union  functioning  and  the  habits  of  thought 
which  determine  union  action.  Viewed  in  this  way,  he 
found  unionism  to  be  not  a  single  social  movement,  but  an 
imperfect  fusion  of  several,  no  one  of  which  can  be  ade- 
quately accounted  for  in  purely  economic  terms.  Shortly 
expressed,  his  analysis  of  unionism  is  characterized  by 
emphasis  upon  function,  the  distinction  of  fundamental 
types  and  a  pluralistic  causal  interpretation. 

From  a  functional  standpoint,  Professor  Hoxie  distin- 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

g^ishes  five  types  of  unionism  (not  to  mention  sub-vari- 
ants) which  differ  among  themselves  in  aims,  methods,  and 
attitude  toward  existing  institutions.  Business  unionism, 
accepting  the  wage  system  as  it  is,  seeks  the  best  obtain- 
able terms  of  employment  for  its  own  membership.  Its 
method  is  collective  bargaining  supplemented  by  mutual  in- 
surance and  occasional  resort  to  strikes ;  its  outlook  is  that 
of  the  craft  or  trade,  its  aims  are  somewhat  narrowly 
economic.  The  railway  brotherhoods  furnish  the  stock  il- 
lustration, though  the  type  is  dominant  in  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  as  well.  Uplift  unionism  accepts, 
along  with  the  wage  system,  the  whole  existing  social 
order.  Its  mission  is  the  diffusion  of  leisure-class  culture 
and  bourgeois  virtues  among  the  workers.  Mutual  insur- 
ance is  its  main  function  and  homiletics  its  preoccupation. 
There  is  no  representative  of  the  pure  type — unless  the 
Woman's  Trade  Union  league  be  accepted  as  such — but 
there  is  a  strong  infusion  of  upHft  idealism  in  most  unions 
that  are  dominated  by  the  business  animus.  Revolutionary 
unionism  avowedly  aims  at  the  overthrow  of  the  extant 
socio-economic  order  by  and  for  the  working  class.  Its 
two  variants — socialistic  and  quasi-anarchistic — are  suffi- 
ciently represented  by  the  Detroit  and  Chicago  organiza- 
tions of  the  I.  W.  W.^  Predatory  unionism  practices  se- 
cret, rather  than  open,  violence.  It  is  lawless,  and  in  so  far 
anarchistic,  but  it  professes  no  far-reaching  philosophy,  nor 
does  it  aim  at  anything  beyond  the  immediate  economic  ad- 
vantage of  its  own  membership.  When  this  ruthless  policy 
is  a  counsel  of  despair,  the  continuation  of  a  bitter  struggle 
which  has  gone  against  the  union  and  the  practical  answer 
to  a  policy  of  extermination  on   the  part  of  employers, 

*  Professor  Hoxie  cites  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners  as 
a  socialistic  union.  But  though  the  official  program  of  this 
union  is  a  synopsis  of  the  Communist  Manifesto,  its  actual 
methods  in  later  years  are  more  nearly  of  the  ordinary  business 
type. 


3cvm  INTRODUCTION 

Professor  Hoxie  terms  the  resultant  subspecies  guerrilla 
unionism.  The  dynamiting  career  of  the  Structural  Iron 
Workers  is  a  familiar  example.  When,  on  the  other  hand, 
predation  is  deliberately  adopted  for  the  aggrandizement 
of  a  narrow  ring,  he  applies  the  more  opprobrious  epithet 
of  hold-up  unionism.  The  term  is  not  altogether  happy. 
Cunning  characterizes  the  type  still  more  than  force ;  its 
most  brilliant  successes  have  been  gained  by  illicit  alliance 
with  monopoly-seeking  employers.  "Skinny"  Madden  and 
"Sam"  Parks  are  the  beaux  ideal  of  the  type.  It  is  fair  to 
add  that  predatory  unionism,  in  both  its  forms,  is  more 
picturesque  than  significant.  Dependent  unionism  appears 
in  two  forms :  that  which  relies  upon  the  support  of  union- 
ists outside  the  group  concerned  and  that  which  is  created 
by  employers  for  ends  of  their  own.  Some  "label"  unions 
are  at  least  partially  dependent  in  the  former  sense ;  all 
"yellow"  unions  are  wholly  dependent  in  the  latter  sense. 

Manifestly  we  have  here  to  do  with  something  more  than 
variants  from  a  single  norm.  These  are  so  many  distinct 
and  conflicting  social  philosophies  in  terms  of  the  special 
needs  and  problems  of  wageworkers.  Each  offers  an  in- 
terpretation of  existing  law  and  order  and  a  plan  of  united 
action  for  the  attainment  of  more  tolerable  conditions  of 
life ;  each  is  held  by  large  numbers  of  wageworkers  who 
carry  on  an  active  propaganda  for  the  conversion  of  their 
fellows,  and  each  aspires  to  possess  the  field.  ^  These  func- 
tional varieties,  then,  are  true  union  types,  as  distinct  as  the 
industrial  and  craft  forms  of  organization  and  far  more 
significant. 

No  functional  type,  it  must  be  owned,  is  precisely  rep- 
resented by  any  concrete  union,  past  or  present;  which 
comes  to  saying  that  no  union  is  altogether  homogeneous 
in  respect  to  aims,  policies,  and  attitude.    Rival  types  coex- 

^  This  statement  needs  some  qualification.  The  predatory 
type  has  shown  little  tendency  to  proselytize,  and  the  propa- 
ganda of  "yellow"  unionism  is  carried  on  by  the  employers. 


INTRODUCTION  xix 

1st  and  struggle  for  the  mastery  within  the  same  organiza- 
tion. As  already  mentioned,  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  is  dominantly  of  the  business  type ;  nevertheless,  a 
strong  and  active  socialist  minority  exists  in  the  federation 
itself  and  in  most  of  the  constituent  unions.  The  conflict 
of  business  and  revolutionary  unionism  is  waged  in  the 
official  publications,  in  local  meetings  and  general  conven- 
tions, and  in  elections  and  referenda.  Even  the  ultra-rev- 
olutionary I.  W.  W.  has  been  torn  by  internecine  strife 
between  anarchist  and  socialist  groups. 

This  want  of  identity  between  functional  and  structural 
lines  of  cleavage  has  obscured  the  existence  of  the  former. 
The  organization  has  an  outward  and  visible  identity.  It 
adopts  constitutions  and  by-laws,  holds  conventions,  enters 
into  trade  agreements,  and  conducts  strikes;  above  all,  it 
bears  a  proper  name  as  the  attestation  of  its  corporeality. 
The  like-minded  group  which  constitutes  a  functional  type 
has  not  these  hall-marks  of  tangibility.  It  is  probable  that 
no  functional  type  has  ever  been  able  to  possess  itself  ab- 
solutely of  any  important  organization  or  to  get  itself  em- 
bodied without  admixture  in  any  considerable  number  of 
union  programs.  None  the  less,  these  types  do  exist  and 
have  persisted  for  decades.  Business  and  uplift  unionism 
date  from  the  eighteenth  century.  Revolutionary  unionism 
has  been  present  in  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  from 
its  beginning  and  was  present  also  in  its  predecessors.  The 
struggle  of  these  three  types  for  the  mastery  (the  other 
two  being  of  minor  consequence)  has  shaped  the  internal 
history  of  the  labor  movement.  The  functional  character 
of  the  leading  unions  has  shifted  from  period  to  period  as 
one  or  another  type  has  gained  a  position  of  dominance,  but 
no  major  type  has  ever  wholly  disappeared  or  lost  its  dis- 
tinctive character. 

The  emergence  and  the  persistence  of  these  union  types 
cannot  be  explained  by  work-day  environment  alone,  for 
radical  divergencies  of  group  viewpoint  and  attitude  are 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

found  among  the  members  of  the  same  trade  employed  in 
the  same  establishment  and  such  divergencies  have  endured 
for  half  a  century  even  within  a  single  craft  organization— 
e.  g.,  the  Cigar  Makers'  International  Union.  Nor  is  econ- 
omic circumstance,  however  broadly  conceived,  adequate 
to  account  for  the  phenomena.  On  the  one  hand,  the  most 
diverse  types  coexist  under  similar  industrial  and  market 
conditions ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  same  types  have  survived 
the  most  startling  economic  transformations. 

The  social  philosophy  of  unionism  relates  to  the  practi- 
cal (mainly  economic)  problems  which  confront  wage- 
workers  as  such,  and  it  turns  upon  conditions  of  work  and 
livelihood  and  upon  the  politico-economic  institutions  which 
govern  these  conditions.  But  this  philosophy  is  shaped  by 
the  whole  mass  of  influences — personal  and  cultural — which 
bear  upon  the  workers  involved.  For  man  is,  after  all,  a 
single  person.  The  several  aspects  of  his  life  cannot  be  iso- 
lated one  from  another;  the  habits  of  thought  which  he 
has  acquired  as  a  citizen,  a  churchman,  or  a  pleasure-seeker 
guide  him  also  in  his  work-day  pursuits.  Rejecting,  there- 
fore, every  attempt  to  give  a  monistic  explanation,  Pro- 
fessor Hoxie  has  sought  to  analyze  the  efficient  causes  ac- 
tually observable  in  the  evolution  of  unionism.  These 
causes  may  be  grouped  under  five  heads  :^ 

1.  The  work-day  environment  proper,  which  operates  in 
manifold  ways  to  produce  solidarity  among  the  workmen  of 
a  given  trade  or  industry,  Tliis  is  the  most  obvious  factor 
in  the  case,  the  one  which  is  best  understood  and  which  has 
received  the  most  attention  from  students  of  the  subject. 

2,  Union  tradition,  itself  in  great  part  the  spiritual  dis- 
tillate of  experience  and  consequently  differing  from  union 
to  union,  but  within  each  organization  acting  as  a  consoli- 
dating force. 

*  The  analysis  here  given  is  more  detailed  than  that  con- 
tained in  Professor  Iloxic's  third  chapter,  but  seems  to  the 
writer  fully  consonant  therewith. 


INTRODUCTION  ;cxi 

3.  The  immediate  social  milieu,  comprising  those  eco- 
nomic, juridical,  ethical,  aesthetic,  religious,  and  other  insti- 
tutional standards,  convictions,  and  relationships  which  make 
up  the  prevalent  civilization.  A  large  part  of  this  cultural 
complex  impinges  with  a  fair  degree  of  uniformity  upon 
the  members  of  the  same  occupational  group  at  a  given 
time  and  place,  and  so  favors  a  group  interpretation  and 
program.  Another  part,  however — e.  g.,  aesthetic  and  re- 
ligious influences — diversely  affects  workers  of  the  same 
occupation,  even  in  the  same  community,  and  so  makes  for 
the  formation  of  subgroups.  The  like  divergence  is,  of 
course,  more  pronounced  as  between  widely  separated  locali- 
ties within  the  same  large  cultural  situation. 

4.  What  may  be  loosely  termed  national  characteristics. 
Workers  of  the  same  craft  in  the  United  States  are  gathered 
from  many  nations,  and,  what  is  more  to  the  point,  from 
widely  different  cultural  situations.  They  bring  to  their 
work  and  to  their  unions  the  most  diverse  convictions  and 
ideals  with  respect  both  to  economic  and  political  institu- 
tions in  general,  and  to  the  immediate  problems  which  con- 
front them  in  their  capacity  of  wageworkers.  To  mold 
these  diverse  elements  into  a  homogeneous  group — homo- 
geneous as  respects  even  the  immediate  problems  of  work 
and  pay — is  a  labor  of  time.  It  is  also  in  good  part  a  labor 
of  Sisyphus,  in  that  it  continually  requires  to  be  done  anew 
for  fresh  comers. 

5.  Congenital  variation  of  those  propensities  and  apti- 
tudes which  form  the  underlying  traits  of  human  nature. 
Such  variations  may  be  of  an  individual  character  or  they 
may  connote  the  presence  of  distinct  ethnic  types  in  our 
mixed  population.  They  cover  a  wide  range  and  are  inde- 
pendent of  recent  cultural  antecedents.  Just  what  part  is 
played  by  these  differences  of  native  endowment,  as  over 
against  environment,  may  be  a  moot  point,  but  few  would 
deny  to  this  factor  a  very  considerable  role  in  shaping  the 
lives  of  men.     Whatever  its  importance,  it  makes  for  di- 


xxii  INTRODUCTION 

versity  of  the  raw  material  and  finished  product  of  union- 
ism. 

From  the  varied  combinations  of  these  relatively  per- 
manent forces  unionism  receives  its  form  and  substance. 
"Workers  similarly  situated  economically  and  socially, 
closely  associated  and  not  too  divergent  in  temperament 
(congenital  endowment)  and  training,  will  tend  to  develop  a 
common  interpretation  of  the  social  situation,  and  a  common 
solution  of  the  problem  of  living"  ^ — that  is,  will  tend  to 
form  a  functional  type.  Obviously  there  will  be  as  many 
such  types  as  there  are  groups  of  workers  with  vitally 
different  viewpoints  and  plans  of  action.^  The  functional 
character  of  any  given  union  is,  then,  a  question  of  the 
psychological  groups  of  which  it  is  composed,  and  this  re- 
solves itself  into  a  question  of  the  personal  traits  and  cultural 
heritage  of  its  members  and  of  the  environmental  discipline 
to  which  they  have  been  subjected.  The  differentiation  of 
unions,  whereby  one  comes  to  be  dominantly  business  and 
another  dominantly  socialistic  in  animus,  is  doubtless  a  mat- 
ter partly  of  selection  and  partly  of  progressive  adaptation 
to  environment.  Men  of  certain  characteristics,  native  and 
acquired,  choose,  and  are  chosen  for,  the  pursuit  of  locomo- 
tive engineers;  thereafter  the  influences  of  their  daily  life 
and  work  mold  their  habits  of  thought,  in  many  particulars, 
to  a  common  pattern.  The  members  of  the  I.  W.  W.  come 
from  a  very  different  social  stratum,  of  other  natural  en- 
dowments and  other  cultural  antecedents,  and  their  training 
as  "hobos"  enforces  a  very  different  outlook  on  life.  These 
forces  of  selection  and  adaptation  which,  on  the  one  hand, 
have  produced  the  arch-type  of  respectable  laborism,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  have  made  the  I.  W.  W.  a  hissing  and 
a  byword  among  the  devotees  of  "law  and  order" — these 
forces  are  relatively  permanent  and  they  work  out  their 
cumulative  effects  in  permanently  different  combinations. 

»  Chap.  Ill,  p.  58. 

*Chap.  Ill,  p.  61. 


INTRODUCTION  xxiii 

Hence  the  resultant  union  types  have  hitherto  shown  no 
tendency  to  merge  into  one  common  unionism. 

This  view  of  unionism,  whether  as  interpretation  or  as 
genetic  account,  wants  definitive  verification.  Neverthe- 
less, there  is  sufficient  warrant  for  the  acceptance  of  Pro- 
fessor Hoxie's  theory  as  a  working  hypothesis.  It  seems  to 
accord  with  the  known  facts,  it  explains  much  in  unionism 
that  is  unintelligible  on  any  other  view,  and  it  is  supported 
by  the  latest  results  of  social  psychology.  Judicious  in- 
quirers have  long  perceived  that  a  purely  economic  interpre- 
tation of  history  does  not  suffice  to  explain  even  economic 
institutions.  It  may  well  be  that  the  extant  material  civiliza- 
tion exercises  a  selective  surveillance  over  other  elements  of 
the  cultural  complex ;  it  may  even  be  granted  that  the 
exigencies  of  material  life  furnish  the  chief,  if  not  the  sole, 
stimulus  to  that  process  of  adjustment  whereby  all  growth 
and  change  of  civilization  are  brought  to  pass.^  Since,  how- 
ever, this  process  of  growth  is  cumulative ;  since,  therefore, 
the  whole  cultural  situation  at  any  given  moment  forms  the 
starting-point  for  the  next  move,  all  institutions — juridical, 
aesthetic,  and  religious,  as  well  as  economic — become  in 
their  turn  causes  as  well  as  effects.  In  the  study  of  a  par- 
ticular social  movement,  such  as  labor  unionism,  the  question 
is  not  how  these  institutions  arose,  but  how  they  have 
affected,  and  have  been  affected  by,  the  movement  con- 
cerned. The  underlying  forces,  whether  temperamental 
or  institutional,  may  be  taken  as  data,  in  the  sense  that 
they  do  not  themselves  require  to  be  explained  for  the 
purpose  in  hand ;  but  to  abstract  the  economic  from  other 
influences  in  such  a  case  is  to  study  the  motions  of  a 
puppet. 

To  sum  up :  Many  have  given  a  structural  ana  narrative 
account  of  American  labor  unionism;  Professor  Hoxie's 
analysis  is  functional  and  genetic.     Seen  from  the  stand- 

*  For  a  very  able  statement  of  this  view,  see  Veblen,  "The 
Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class,"  Chap.  VIII. 


xxiv  INTRODUCTION 

point  of  aims,  ideals,  methods,  and  theories,  there  is  no 
normal  type  to  which  all  union  variants  approximate,  no 
single  labor  movement  which  has  progressively  adapted  it- 
self to  progressive  change  of  circumstances,  no  one  set  of 
postulates  which  can  be  spoken  of  as  the  philosophy  of 
unionism.  Rather  there  are  competing,  relatively  stable 
union  types,  functional  and  structural,  the  outcome  of  per- 
manent differences  in  the  temperament  and  situation  of  dif- 
ferent groups  of  wageworkers. 

If  this  pluralistic  interpretation  of  the  union  movement 
meets  general  acceptance,  it  will  have  important  conse- 
quences for  social  appraisal  and  action.  It  means  that 
unionism  cannot  be  judged  and  treated  as  a  whole,  that  what 
is  true  of  one  type  of  union  polity  is  not  true  of  others,  that, 
consequently,  union  history  points  no  single  moral  to  the 
publicist,  and  that  no  panacea,  whether  it  be  profit-shar-ing, 
"welfare  work,"  industrial  education,  minimum  wage,  or 
social  insurance,  will  meet  the  wishes  or  allay  the  discon- 
tent of  all  important  groups  of  wageworkers.  It  means, 
further,  that  the  errors  and  perversities  of  trade  unions — 
as  seen  from  the  middle-class  standpoint — are  not  to  be 
corrected  by  much  preaching.  The  several  types  of  union- 
ism are  the  outcome  of  positive  conditions.  Unionists  are 
what  they  are  by  reason  of  congenital  endowment  and  the 
circumstances  under  which  they  live  and  work.  There  is 
small  likelihood,  therefore,  that  union  conviction  and  atti- 
tude will  be  much  affected  by  any  action  which  does  not 
change  the  ethnic  character  of  the  population  nor  alter  the 
fundamental  conditions  of  life  and  work. 

To  the  professed  student  of  social  science  the  special 
significance  of  these  studies  will  lie  in  their  viewpoint  and 
method  of  approach.  Economics,  above  all  in  the  United 
States,  has  heretofore  stood  strangely  outside  the  current 
of  modern  scientific  development;  its  postulates  are  of  a 
preevolutionary  order,  its  method  is  highly  abstract  and,  a 
priori,  its  interest  centers  in  classification  quite  after  the 


INTRODUCTION  xxv 

fashion  of  Linnaean  botany.^  In  Europe,  though  pre-Dar- 
winism  still  holds  the  field,  the  evolutionary  standpoint  has 
been  accepted  by  many  economists  of  note,^  but  in  this 
country  the  few  exponents  of  genetic  theory  have  been  as 
voices  crying  in  the  wilderness.  The  present  book  will  give 
comfort,  therefore,  to  those  whose  hope  it  is  that  economics 
also  may  become  an  evolutionary  science. 

Like  all  genetic  studies,  this  of  trade  unionism  transcends 
the  arbitrary  limits  of  traditional  economics.  Professor 
Hoxie,  in  fact,  essayed  an  inquiry  into  group  psychology. 
The  inquiry  is  economic,  not  in  the  sense  of  isolating  the 
economic  life  of  the  groups  in  question  from  the  cultural 
situation  in  which  that  life  is  involved,  but  in  virtue  of  the 
fact  that  the  convictions,  aims,  and  aspirations  inquired  into 
are  such  as  converge  upon  the  ways  and  means  of  liveli- 
hood. On  the  other  hand,  the  study  is  none  the  less  a  con- 
tribution to  social  psychology  because  it  has  to  do  with  eco- 
nomic groups.  Indeed,  it  is  only  through  such  detailed 
studies  of  particular  groups  that  a  secure  basis  can  be  laid 
for  general  sociology.  For  the  community  is  not  aggre- 
gated of  individuals  merely ;  individuals  are  associated  in  all 
manner  of  groups,  occupational,  local,  political,  religious, 
and  what  not,  each  more  or  less  selective  in  point  of  mem- 
bership, each  imposing  more  or  less  peculiar  canons  of  con- 
duct, each  more  or  less  differently  affected  by  those  exigen- 
cies making  for  cultural  growth  and  decay.  Useful  analysis 
of  social  organization  and  functioning,  therefore,  must  deal 
with  these  groups  of  which  the  larger  society  is  composed. 

Important,  however,  as  are  Professor  Hoxie's  contribu- 
tions to  trade  union  theory  and  to  sociological  method,  it  is 

^  Cf.  Veblen,  'The  Preconceptions  of  Economic  Science," 
Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  XIII,  121,  396;  XIV,  240; 
"The  Limitations  of  Marginal  Utility,"  Journal  of  Political 
Economy,  XVII,  620. 

2  Gustav  Schmoller,  Werner  Sombart,  Tugan-Baranowsky, 
and  Paul  Vinogradoff  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  point. 


xxvi  INTRODUCTION 

as  a  teacher  that  he  will  be  most  remembered  by  those  who 
had  the  good  fortune  to  be  his  pupils.  Year  after  year  he 
gave  himself  unreservedly  to  his  classes,  in  term  time  and 
vacation,  devoting  to  the  arrangement  of  courses,  the  elab- 
oration of  notes,  the  selection  of  materials  and  the  perfec- 
tion of  pedagogic  methods,  that  infinite  care  which  is  too 
rarely  expended  even  upon  formal  writing.  He  was  never 
satisfied ;  after  a  course  which  any  other  teacher  would  have 
considered  brilliantly  successful,  he  sat  down  to  analyze  the 
causes  of  his  "failure."  He  never  relied  upon  stereotyped 
materials.  Courses  which  he  had  repeated  time  and  again 
were  worked  over  afresh  each  term  to  incorporate  current 
developments  and  the  latest  results  of  his  own  reflections. 
What  with  this  constant  revision  of  class  notes,  the  daily 
preparation  that  he  never  failed  to  make,  and  the  time  that 
he  gave  in  unstinted  measure  to  the  individual  direction  of 
student  research,  he  found  scant  leisure  for  formal  writing 
— all  the  less  because  he  was  a  frequent  sufferer  from  ill 
health.  But  he  reaped  his  reward,  if  reward  it  be,  in  widen- 
ing the  intellectual  horizon  and  quickening  the  social  per- 
ception of  hundreds  of  men  and  women. 

Professor  Hoxie  was  wont  to  lay  much  stress  upon  the 
orientation  of  his  classes  because  experience  had  taught  him 
that  all  phenomena,  and  more  especially  social  phenomena, 
are  distorted  by  the  preconceptions  which  adults  and  adoles- 
cents bring  to  their  consideration.  Above  all,  in  a  subject 
so  beset  with  passionate  interests  as  trade  unionism,  he 
found  it  indispensable  to  preface  his  inquiry  by  an  historical 
and  critical  analysis  of  conventional  views  which  served  to 
open  the  minds  of  his  hearers  to  other  conceptions  of  eco- 
nomic relationships.  For  it  lies  in  the  social  character  of 
man  that  the  institutions  and  modes  of  thought  to  which 
we  have  been  accustomed  shall  seem  intrinsically  good  and 
beautiful.  It  is  only  as  we  become  aware  that  these  insti- 
tutions themselves  are  not  the  immutable  order  of  nature, 
but  the  outcome  of  positive  historical  processes,  that  we 


INTRODUCTION  xxvii 

are  able  to  appreciate  other  ideals  of  right  and  good,  not  as 
mere  perversities,  but  as  objective  institutional  facts.  Such 
orientation  would  be  a  mere  digression  in  a  course  con- 
cerned primarily  with  external  phenomena;  it  was  funda- 
mental to  a  course  which  aimed  to  interpret  the  trade  union 
point  of  view.  The  orientation  was  not  simply  preliminary ; 
the  genetic  standpoint — explanation  of  what  is  in  terms 
of  how  it  came  to  be — was  maintained  throughout  so  that 
the  exposition  of  contrasting  preconceptions  became  a  vital 
feature  of  the  course.  In  thus  examining  the  fundamental 
assumptions  both  of  capitalism  and  of  trade  unionism, 
Professor  Hoxie  was  consciously  teleological,  for  he  appre- 
ciated that  knowledge  looks  to  action  and  that  the  end  of 
social  knowledge  is  social  control.  Only  he  did  not  forget, 
as  unconscious  teleologists  so  often  do,  that  effective  action 
is  conditioned  upon  knowledge  formulated  in  causal,  genetic 
terms.  He  impressed  upon  his  students  that  the  purpose 
and  outcome  of  their  study  should  be  to  inform  their  own 
action  and  attitude  toward  unionism,  but  that,  before  this 
result  could  be  attained,  they  must  first  of  all  understand 
unionism,  what  it  is  and  how  it  came  to  be,  why  unionists 
think  and  act  as  they  do  and  how  union  policies  are  being 
modified  by  current  socio-economic  changes.  Upon  this  ob- 
jective, causal  understanding  of  the  labor  movement  his 
whole  attention  was  focused.  Looking  always  to  social 
control  of  labor  relationships,  he  yet  never  formulated  a 
social  program,  much  less  sought  to  persuade  others  of  its 
validity.  Program  making  he  willingly  left  to  others,  both 
because  he  had  not  sufficiently  mastered  the  complex  facts 
in  the  case  and  because  he  did  not  deem  himself  competent 
to  define  the  social  ends  toward  which  a  comprehensive 
labor  program  should  be  directed.  His  was  the  more  modest, 
and  for  the  present  perhaps  more  useful,  role  of  causal 
explanation. 

This  explicit  recognition  of  ultimate  teleological  interest 
and  this  insistence  upon  rigorous  causal  analysis  combined 


xxviii  INTRODUCTION 

to  give  the  course  in  trade  unionism  a  quite  peculiar  objec- 
tivity. Professor  Hoxie  escaped,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
sterility  of  those  social  scientists  who  deny  all  interest  in 
social  values — to  whom  the  evolution  of  a  sleeve  button 
has  the  same  importance  as  the  genesis  of  private  property 
— and,  on  the  other  hand,  avoided  the  pitfalls  of  those 
who  allow  meliorative  programs  to  predetermine  their  con- 
clusions in  matters  of  fact.  His  consciousness  that  social 
science  should  contribute  to  human  weal  helped  him  to 
distinguish  that  which  is  vital  from  that  which  is  merely 
curious  or  picturesque,  while  his  freedom  from  all  prop- 
agandist bent  kept  him  open-minded  to  every  new  fact  or 
impression.  Having  no  program  of  his  own  to  advocate, 
he  could  view  dispassionately  the  proposals  of  anarchists, 
socialists  or  uplifters,  syndicalists  or  anti-union  employers, 
and  bring  them  all  alike  to  the  test  of  consonance  with  those 
causal  relationships  which  these  several  meliorists  seek  to 
modify. 

Pedagogically,  Professor  Hoxie  employed  the  problem 
method.  His,  however,  was  not  the  caricature  of  that 
method  which  has  been  popularized  by  quiz  books,  outlines 
and  formal  exercises.  He  set  before  his  classes  real  prob- 
lems of  interpretation,  of  what,  how  and  zvhy,  which  arose 
spontaneously  out  of  their  reading  and  class  discussion. 
Most  of  these  problems  had  to  do  with  current  aspects  of 
the  labor  movement,  for  Professor  Hoxie  cared  little  for 
labor  history  as  ordinarily  conceived.  He  was  interested 
in  the  past,  indeed,  but  only  in  so  far  as  it  served  to 
explain  the  present.  What  he  sought  was  genetic,  as 
opposed  to  narrative,  history.^  His  concern  was  with  the 
present  and  the  future  of  unionism,  because  his  interest 
was  pragmatic,  and  it  is  the  present  and  the  future  alone 
that  are  amenable  to  social  control.  From  the  manifold 
phenomena  of  the  existing  movement  he  raised  innumerable 

*  See  Appendix  I,  "Historical  Method  versus  Historical  Nar- 
rative," p.  377.       /  t  ,  , 


INTRODUCTION  xxix 

questions  and  he  followed  these  questions  whithersoever 
they  led ;  into  social  psychology,  it  might  be,  or  the  opposed 
institutional  influence  of  machine  discipline  and  religious 
tradition,  or  the  early  history  of  the  cordwainers*  union. 
He  led  his  students  by  the  same  paths,  sending  them  to 
history  only  for  the  answers  to  concrete  questions.  The 
genetic  method,  as  he  conceived  it,  was  thus  the  pedagogic 
also,  carrying  the  student  from  existing  interests  to  new 
problems  and  giving  definite  direction  and  purpose  to  his 
reading. 

The  problems  so  set  increased  in  complexity  with  the 
student's  advancement ;  at  first  merely  the  meaning  and 
purpose  of  particular  clauses  in  trade  agreements,  of  speci- 
fic working  rules  or  of  certain  restrictions  upon  local 
autonomy,  progressing  thence  by  gradual  steps  to  the  for- 
mulation of  the  trade  union  program  and  philosophy  and  to 
such  recondite  questions  as  the  validity  of  Webb's  doctrine 
of  uniformity,  Veblen's  view  of  the  relationship  of  machine 
technology  to  class  conflict  or  Hoxie's  own  theory  of  func- 
tional union  types.  The  sources  drawn  upon,  aside  from 
standard  works  of  reference,  comprised  original  docu- 
ments of  every  sort,  more  especially  the  trade  agreements 
and  working  rules  which,  not  being  designed  for  public 
consumption,  are  exceptionally  free  from  affectation,  and, 
above  all,  first-hand  contact  with  union  and  anti-union 
leaders  of  many  types,  for  which  the  vast  field  laboratory 
of  Chicago  afforded  so  great  facilities.  Before  the  trade 
union  class  within  a  single  term  appeared  the  militant 
chiefs  of  the  National  Manufacturers'  Association  and  the 
Metal  Trades'  Council,  the  walking  delegates  of  the  build- 
ing trades,  the  head  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor, 
spokesmen  of  the  building  contractors  and  the  railway 
brotherhoods,  the  distinguished  editor  of  the  Iron  Mold- 
ers'  Journal  and  the  secretary  of  the  I.  W.  W.  Conversely, 
teacher  and  pupils  attended  the  Sunday  meetings  of  the 
Chicago  Federation  of  Labor  and  meetings  of  local  unions. 


XXX  INTRODUCTION 

followed  current  labor  news  in  the  daily  press  and  inter- 
viewed many  individuals  in  the  lower  ranks  of  leadership. 
Nor  were  these  mere  aimless  excursions  or  diverting  breaks 
in  the  class  routine.  Speakers  before  that  class  did  not 
escape  with  a  set  apologia ;  they  were  called  upon  to  answer 
a  running  fire  of  questions  from  both  ends  of  the  room — 
questions  suggested  as  much  by  previous  reading  and  dis- 
cussion as  by  the  speaker's  own  statements.  Every  visit 
to  a  labor  meeting  was  followed  by  a  lively  discussion  of 
its  significant  occurrences ;  every  interview  was  designed  to 
throw  light  upon  some  definite  question.  In  the  same 
spirit  were  conceived  the  assigned  readings,  the  class  re- 
ports and  the  term  papers.  Each  student  was  expected  to 
become  specially  familiar  with  some  particular  union  in 
its  several  ways  and  works,  to  report  before  the  class  on 
questions  which  he  had  investigated  in  the  library  or  the 
field,  and  to  embody  his  own  findings  upon  some  limited 
problem  in  a  final  theme.  Problem  discussion  was  thus  the 
life  of  the  course;  the  formal  lectures  served  merely  to 
give  orientation  and  a  connected  view.  As  Professor 
Hoxie  sometimes  said,  ''the  class  taught  itself" ;  indeed,  he 
was  frequently  in  the  back  row  rather  than  behind  the 
desk. 

These  methods  were  carried  furthest  in  the  research 
course  for  graduate  students  wherein  teacher  and  class 
engaged  in  a  joint  examination  of  fundamental  theories. 
The  results  obtained  by  the  research  class  also  led  to 
important  modifications  of  Professor  Hoxie's  own  views, 
particularly  as  respects  class  conflict  and  the  relations  there- 
to of  machine  technology.  But,  indeed.  Professor  Hoxie's 
teaching,  whether  of  graduates  or  undergraduates,  always 
partook  of  the  character  of  a  joint  enterprise  in  the  dis- 
covery of  truth.  No  man  was  ever  more  open  to  sug- 
gestions from  whatever  source  or  more  thorough  in  follow- 
ing out  each  suggestion  until  he  had  ascertained  its  final 
value    and    incorporated    it    into    the    general    body    of 


INTRODUCTION  xxxi 

his  theory.  His  maturest  conclusions  were  never  more  than 
provisional.  Hence  his  views  underwent,  not  only  con- 
tinuous growth,  but  continuous  change  as  well.  This  char- 
acteristic is  nowhere  better  seen  than  in  his  treatment  of 
class  conflict.  Professor  Veblen's  persuasive  and  brilliant 
theory  was  at  one  time  taught  by  him,  not,  indeed,  as  final, 
but  as  sufficient  for  the  purpose  in  hand.  Gradually,  how- 
ever, he  came  to  see  that  class  lines  in  the  concrete  are 
less  sharp  than  the  contrasting  disciplines  of  business  enter- 
prise and  machine  industry  would  apparently  produce  if 
acting  alone,  and  that,  correlatively,  political,  religious  and 
educational  influences  are  more  important  than  he  had  at 
first  supposed.  He  thus  found  himself  more  and  more 
in  sympathy  with  Professor  Commons'  conceptions  of 
social  control. 

This  singular  open-mindedness  found  constant  expres- 
sion in  the  classroom.  No  teacher  was  ever  less  dogmatic 
or  less  given  to  ex  cathedra  moralizing.  As  he  was  always 
modifying  his  own  views  in  the  light  of  fuller  knowledge, 
so  he  led  his  students  to  formulate  their  conclusions,  not 
from  ipse  dixit,  but  from  the  evidence  before  them.  The 
same  quality  of  mind  made  him  signally  devoid  of  partisan- 
ship. Conventional  moral  judgments  found  no  place  in  his 
spoken  or  written  words,  because  he  was  concerned  with 
the  explanation  of  institutions,  not  with  their  justification. 
For  that  very  reason  his  influence  upon  his  students  was 
profound  and  lasting.  The  teacher  who  attacks  or  defends 
the  existing  social  order  will  better  please  the  groundlings 
and  will  attract  the  larger  immediate  following,  for  he 
appeals  directly  to  the  passionate  enthusiasm  of  youth, 
but  he  who  raises  heart-searching  questions,  awakens  in- 
tellectual interests,  and  lays  the  foundation  for  future 
thought  and  inquiry,  will  contribute  more  to  "the  increase 
and  diffusion  of  knowledge — and  of  character — among 
men." 

E.  H.  Downey. 


CONTENTS 


PAO< 


I.    THE  PROBLEM 


Difficulties  of  the  study. — Need  of  a  definitely  formu- 
lated problem. — Social  interests  touched  by  unionism. 
— The  social  psychological  view  of  unionism. — The 
ultimate  problem  one  of  control. — We  must  know 
what  unionism  is. — Illustrations:  Is  unionism  op- 
posed to  efficiency? — Does  unionism  aim  to  reduce 
the  workers  to  a  dead  level  of  mediocrity? — Union 
opposition  to  piece  work. — The  use  of  violence. — 
Unionism  a  historical  product. — Genetic  and  causal 
study  necessary. — The  scientific  spirit  defined. — Spe- 
cial reason  for  scientific  attitude  in  union  study. — 
Cautions  to  students. — Necessity  for  first  hand  study. 
— Summary. 

II.  GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  TYPES   .   .   31 

Popular  interpretations  and  solutions  of  unionism. — 
Unionism  not  a  unified  entity. — Existence  of  distinct 
union  types. — Structural  types. — Functional  types. 

HL    THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  AND  THE  IN- 
TERPRETATION OF  UNION  TYPES      ...      53 

Tests  of  distinct  union  types. — Unionism  a  functional 
group  manifestation. — Arises  out  of  the  common 
needs  and  problems  of  the  wageworkers. — Conflict- 
ing functional  variants  in  unionism. — Orthodox 
causal  and  historical  interpretations  of  unionism. — 
Real  tests  of  types;  concurrent  existence  as  rival 
forms ;  relative  permanence  or  stability. — Correlation 
between  structural  and  functional  types. — Recapitula- 
tion. 


xxxiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTBB  TAGS 

IV.  A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW        ...      78 

Causes  of  first  appearance  of  trade  unions. — Their 
functions. — A  principle  of  union  development. — Pe- 
riods of  unionism  in  the  United  States. — Summary 
of  character  and  causes  of  development. — Structure 
of  the  K|iights  of  Labor. — Its  functions. — Causes  of 
failure. — Conclusions. 

V.  PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS 103 

Tendencies  in  American  unionism. — Railway  broth- 
erhoods.— Causes  of  their  success. — Structure  of 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor. — The  national  or 
international  union. — The  local. — The  local  and  dis- 
trict council. — The  department. — The  city  central  and 
state  federation. — The  general  federal  body,  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor. — Causes  of  its  suc- 
cess and  failufe. 

VI.  THE     INDUSTRIAL     WORKERS     OF     THE 
WORLD  AND  REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM    .     139 

Numerical  weakness  of  the  I.  W.  W.  in  effective 
membership, — Internal  conflict — centralizers  and  de- 
centralizers. — Lack  of  financial  resources. — Charac- 
ter of  membership. — Leadership. — Syndicalism  versus 
industrial  unionism. — Conclusion  on  the  I.  W.  W. — 
Alleged  syndicalistic  manifestations. — Do  we  face  a 
serious  syndicalist  problem? — Revolutionary  union- 
ism not  to  be  distinguished  by  violence  nor  sabotage. 
— Its  essence  and  forms. — Its  assumptions. — Aims  of 
the  socialist  unionists. — Goal  of  the  quasi  anarchistic 
unionists. — Theories,  policies  and  methods, — Strength 
of  revolutionary  unionism. — Outlook  for  revolution- 
ary unionism. 

VII.  THE  LEADERS  AND  THE  RANK  AND  FILE    177 
Democracy  in  unionism. — Two  classes  of  unionists. — 
Causes  of  friction  between  the  leaders  and  the  rank 

and  file. — Character  of  the  leaders, — The  walking 
delegate. — Relations  to  the  body  of  members. — Craft 


CONTENTS  XXXV 

CHAPTER  PAOB 

and  class  consciousness  of  business  unionists. — Con- 
test between  business  and  socialist  unionists. 

VIII.  EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATIONS .        .        .        .188 
Knowledge  of  employers'  organizations  needed  for  a 
complete    understanding    of    unionism. — Structural 

and  functional  types. — Associations  formed  after  the 
anthracite  strike. — Methods  employed. — Assumptions 
and  theories. — Critical  considerations. — Mediatory 
and  militant  organizations. — A  blow  at  individualism. 
— Need  of  developing  social  consciousness. 

IX.  THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR  .  ,211 
Purposes  and  method  of  study. — Absolutistic  and 
evolutionary  concepts  of  society. — The  concept  re- 
flected by  the  law. — Essential  characteristics  of  the 
law. — Relative  bargaining  power  of  employer  and 
employee. — Summary  of  the  legal  status  of  labor  and 

the  employer. — Legal  status  of  associations  of  labor. 
— Reasons  for  the  weak  legal  status  of  unions  and 
the  resulting  attitude  of  unionists. — How  the  law 
has  worked  in  the  past. — Rise  of  the  modern  wage 
earner. — The  law  an  eighteenth  century  product. — 
Specific  constructive  needs. 

X.  COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  AND  THE  TRADE 
UNION    PROGRAM 254 

First  strand  of  the  theory  of  collective  bargaining, 
a  theory  of  standardization. — Second  strand,  need  for 
specification  of  conditions  of  employment. — Third 
strand,  benefits  to  employer. — Fourth  strand,  double- 
sided  monopoly. — Standard  of  living  theory. — Fixed 
group  demand  theory. — Conciliation,  mediation  and 
arbitration. — Essential  parts  of  a  trade  agreement. — 
Types  of  agreement  according  to  scope. — Three  steps 
in  the  process  of  collective  bargaining. — Necessary 
conditions  for  collective  bargaining. — Negotiating 
bodies. — Illustrations, — Enforcement  of  agreements. 
— Conclusions, 


xxxvi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XL     THE     ECONOMIC     PROGRAM     OF     TRADE 
UNIONISM 279 

Mode  of  formulating  the  program. — A  social  philos- 
ophy and  plan  of  action. — Classification  used. — The 
union  viewpoint  is  a  group  viewpoint. — Its  principal 
economic  aims. — Fundamental  assumptions  and  the- 
ories.— Policies  and  methods  of  carrying  its  program 
into  effect. 

XII.  SCIENTIFIC    MANAGEMENT    AND    LABOR 
WELFARE 296 

Definition  and  significance  of  scientific  management. 
— Character  and  scope. — Two  conceptions  of  time 
and  motion  study. — Mechanical  and  human  elements 
of  the  industrial  process. — Variable  human  factors. — 
Scientific  management  in  practice. — Generalizations 
and  conclusions. 

XIII.  WHY  ORGANIZED  LABOR  OPPOSES   SCI- 
ENTIFIC MANAGEMENT    .        o        o        ,        .        .    326 

Essential  character  and  claims  made  for  scientific 
management. — Opposition  of  labor  leaders. — Causes 
to  which  the  opposition  is  ascribed. — Examination  of 
the  alleged  causes. — Fundamental  cause. — Craft 
unions  of  the  dominant  type  are  essentially  business 
organizations. — Attitude  toward  output  and  effi- 
ciency.— Scientific  management  looks  to  constant 
change;  unionism  to  fixity  and  uniformity. — Conse- 
quently different  of  attitude  toward  time  and  motion 
study. — Fundamental    principles    incompatible. 

XIV.  SOCIAL  CONTROL 350 

Mechanical  and  psychological  tests  of  social  classes. 
— Application  for  this  study. — Society  a  series  of 
functional  social  groups. — Labor  a  complex  of 
groups. — Nature  of  functional  groups. — Classi- 
cal economic  social  theory. — Relation  to  an- 
archism.— Critical     consideration     of     its     assvimp- 


CONTENTS  xxxvii 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

tions. — Socialist  theory  of  society. — Relation  to  the 
classical  economic  theory. — Theory  of  Professor 
Veblen.  —  Criticism.  —  Progressive-uplift  theory. — 
Criticism. — Possibility  of  minima  and  maxima  as  the 
way  out. — Theory  and  action. — Specific  evils  and 
remedies. 

APPENDICES 

I.  NOTES  ON  METHOD 376 

II.  STUDENTS'  REPORT  ON  TRADE  UNION  PRO- 
GRAM         391 

INDEX 411 


TRADE  UNIONISM  IN  THE 
UNITED  STATES 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  PROBLEM 

The  field  of  American  trade  unionism  is  practically 
virgin  soil  for  the  serious  student  of  social  affairs.  No 
one  knows  much  about  it  except,  perhaps,  trade  union- 
ists themselves  and  employers  of  organized  labor,  and 
their  knowledge  is  admittedly  special,  narrow,  scrappy 
and  altogether  biased.  A  great  deal,  indeed,  has  been 
written  about  it  but  this  is  either  fragmentary  or  hope- 
lessly superficial  or  hopelessly  partisan.  Academically, 
little  attempt  has  been  made  at  a  serious,  general  and 
scientific  study  of  it. 

The  study  has  never  been  standardized,  therefore. 
There  are  no  adequate  textbooks  or  syllabi  available  as 
guides.  We  cannot  get  references  that  cover  concisely 
and  adequately  even  special  topics.  In  short,  as  students 
of  unionism  we  are  left  to  fight  our  way  through  an 
intricate  jungle  of  diffused  and  apparently  contradictory 
facts,  misguided  at  every  step  by  the  passion  and  par- 
tisanship of  interested  parties  and  prejudiced  observers. 
Besides,  unionism  is  in  essence  one  of  the  most  complex, 
diffuse  and  protean  of  modern  social  phenomena.  There 
is  not  one  local  union,  but  probably  30,000;  there  is  not 


2  TRADE  UNIONISM 

one  national  union,  but  about  130,  each  with  its  own 
problems  to  solve  and  its  own  aims,  policies,  attitudes  and 
methods.  These  unions  do  not  amalgamate  into  a  single 
general  organization  and  movement  but  there  are  many 
independent  unions  and  several  groups  and  general  asso- 
ciations with  vitally  different  viewpoints,  fundamental 
purposes,  and  ways  of  attaining  them.  What  is  true  of 
one  union  or  group  may  not  be  true  at  all  of  another. 
No  judgments  may  be  rendered  nor  generalizations  made 
in  regard  to  unionism  as  such  from  the  study  of  any 
union  or  any  small  number  of  unions  or  any  group.  And, 
moreover,  in  the  realm  of  unionism  everything  is  in  a 
state  of  flux,  of  constant  change  and  development.  Posi- 
tive conclusions,  therefore,  are  almost  impossible  to  se- 
cure, and  tentative  generalizations  can  be  made  only  as 
the  result  of  the  most  broad  and  painstaking  examination 
of  the  facts  and  an  ability  to  get  beneath  appearances, 
to  discount  deliberately  false  and  prejudiced  statements, 
for  almost  all  sources  are  partisan,  meant  to  mislead  the 
unwary.  We  can  form  even  such  generalizations  only  if 
we  can  free  ourselves  from  passion  and  prejudice. 

It  is  generally  conceded  that,  not  only  in  the  study  of 
trade  unionism  but  in  the  study  of  any  subject,  we  need 
— if  the  results  are  to  be  worth  while — a  definitely  for- 
mulated problem  or  series  of  problems  for  solution,  and 
if  we  are  to  accomplish  something  worth  while  we  must 
get  at  the  outset  a  clear  conception  of  the  nature  of  the 
problem,  the  attitude  of  mind  necessary  to  the  success- 
ful interpretation  of  the  material  and  the  proper  method 
of  attack  upon  it.  A  mere  indiscriminate  study  of  facts, 
a  mere  accumulation  of  information  without  definite 
purpose,  is  not  justifiable  as  a  piece  of  university  work 
\xx  a  time  when  individual  group  competition  is  so  keeij 


THE  PROBLEM  3 

and  there  is  such  a  crying  need  for  the  development  of 
social  resources  and  the  betterment  of  the  opportunities 
for  decent  living  and  development  for  a  great  portion  of 
our  people.  The  knowledge  of  facts  is  only  worth  while 
when  it  has  a  use  value,  when  it  can  serve  a  vital  social 
or  human  purpose.  But  facts  can  have  no  definite  use 
values  when  they  are  not  carefully  selected  and  for  this 
selection  it  is  necessary  to  have  a  definite  problem  in 
view  which  concerns  vital  social  interests,  and  whose  so- 
lution is  capable  of  throwing  light  on  some  vital  human 
or  social  end  or  ends. 

From  this  point  of  view  why  should  we  study  trade 
unionism?  What  must  we  get  out  of  the  study  of  it  if 
it  is  to  justify  itself?  What  is  the  vital  problem  which 
it  presents  to  us  as  individuals  and  which  we  must  strive 
to  solve  through  its  study?  We  can  perhaps  get  at  this 
matter  best  by  asking :  What  vital  human  and  social  in- 
terests does  unionism  touch  and  affect  through  its  aims, 
principles,  policies,  demands,  methods  and  attitudes? 
One  way  of  doing  this  and  at  the  same  time  of  getting 
some  concrete  conception  of  the  thing,  unionism,  itself, 
is  through  a  review  of  the  functions  which  unionism  has 
assumed.  From  a  study  of  the  list  of  aims,  principles, 
policies,  demands,  methods  and  attitudes,  it  would  appear 
that  unionism  affects : 

( I )  Production  in  almost  an  immeasurable  number  of 
ways,  through  limitation  of  hours,  overtime,  Sunday  and 
holiday  time;  character  of  machinery,  tools  and  mate- 
rials ;  new  machinery  and  processes ;  speed  of  work ;  bar- 
gaining ;  hiring  and  discharging ;  closed  shop ;  promotion ; 
amount  of  work ;  who  shall  work — whether  carpenters  or 
sheet  metal  workers  in  a  jurisdictional  strike  or  dispute; 
etc. 


4  TRADE  UNIONISM 

(2)  Established  rights,  through  interferences  at  every 
point  with  the  right  of  the  employer  to  run  his  business 
to  suit  himself;  with  the  assured  right  of  the  individual 
worker  to  work  where,  when,  for  whom,  and  for  what  he 
pleases. 

(3)  Distribution  and  capital,  at  the  point  of  wages  and 
profits,  by  nonrecognition  of  profit  rates  and  by  de- 
mands for  more,  more,  more,  now. 

(4)  Law  and  order  in  the  matters  of  legal  theory;  nat- 
ural order,  free  competition,  joint  combinations,  injunc- 
tions, contempts,  etc. 

(5)  Ethical  standards,  through  the  building  up  by 
trade  unions  of  standards  in  conflict  with  those  com- 
monly held ;  class  loyalty  as  against  individualism ;  mini- 
mizing property  rights;  setting  up  life  as  against  prop- 
erty ;  the  theory  that  might  makes  right ;  ^  the  right  to 
work;  opposition  to  vested  interests:  use  of  physical 
violence;  use  of  ostracism;  etc. 

(6)  General  power  over  social  welfare;  power  over 
fuel  and  transportation;  ability  to  paralyze  social  action 
at  any  time  through  a  strategical  hold;  "hunting  to- 
gether" in  the  building  trades. 

In  short,  it  would  appear  that  unionism  has  its  finger 
in  practically  every  social  pie  that  is  baking.  It  con- 
cerns itself  in  innumerable  ways  with  the  processes  of 
production  and  distribution  and  with  the  welfare  of  the 
consumer.  Where  it  is  strategically  located  it  can,  if  it 
will,  paralyze  our  whole  economic  activity  as  such.  It 
is  a  force  affecting  definitely  the  number,  training  and 
general  efficiency  of  our  productive  laborers,  the  organi- 
zation of  the  labor  market,  the  shop,  the  problems  of 

*  An  extreme  illustration  is  furnished  by  the  Industrial  Work- 
ers of  the  World, 


THE  PROBLEM 

living,  discipline,  promotion  and  discharge,  the  ho 
labor,  the  employment  of  women  and  children,  ' 
ganization  of  industrial  enterprise  and  the  gene 
specific  methods  of  production,  the  use  or  ne 
new  industrial  machinery  and  processes,   the 
and  quality  of  the  productive  output,  the  modes  v 
ment  which  may  be  employed,  the  cost  of  production 
commodities  and  the  prices  which  we  must  pay  for  them, 
the  problems  of  industrial  accident,  disease  and  death, 
and  the  method  and  extent  of  compensation  which  so- 
ciety shall  pay  therefor,   the  certainty   and   continuity 
of  employment,   the   community  problems  of  housing, 
cleanliness,  health,  and  recreation,  the  character  of  our 
educational  system,   the  standards  of  political  honesty 
and  efficiency,  the  character  of  our  legislation,  not  only 
on  industrial  but  on  all  social  matters,  the  enforcement 
and  legal  interpretation  of  our  laws,  the  extent  of  drunk- 
enness and  vice,  the  general  ethical  and  religious  stand- 
ards of  the  community,  and  hundreds  of  other  matters 
with  which  the  community  and  every  individual  in  it  is 
vitally  concerned. 

In  fact,  unionism  is  one  of  those  group  forces  whose 
influence  is  effective  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  in  de- 
termining every  feature  and  standard  in  our  industrial, 
political,  social,  ethical  and  religious  life.  The  business 
man,  even  though  he  may  employ  nonunion  men,  must 
understand  it,  if  he  is  not  to  become  involved  in  har- 
assing and  ruinous  difficulty,  for  unionism  has  ways  of 
making  its  force  felt  far  beyond  the  realm  of  its  mem- 
bership. The  consumer  is  never  free  from  its  influence 
and  effect;  the  politician  must  seek  its  support  or  find  a 
way  to  escape  from  its  influence ;  the  lawyer  must  know 
its  purpose,  contentions  and  force,  if  he  is  to  serve  his 


TRADE  UNIONISM 

J,    effectively;   the   social   worker  cannot  proceed, 
Ij'rom  consideration  of  its  aims  and  attitudes;  the 
..  I*  must  consider  it  in  working  out  his  plans  and 
[.  ies  if  he  is  to  be  more  than  a  mere  exhorter; 
fi  teacher  finds  himself  forced  to  work  with  or 
iSt  it.    There  is  apparently  no  occupation  into  which 
.ly  individual  may  enter  where  unionism  may  not  ap- 
pear as  a  factor  that  must  be  taken  account  of.     In 
view  of  this  we  are  moved  to  ask :     Is  there  a  single 
social  interest  which  is  not  thus  affected?     Is  there  a 
single  individual  or  social  right  which  unionism  may  not 
challenge  or  affect?    Is  there  anything  in  politics,  morals, 
ethics,  or  religion  upon  which  it  does  not  have  its  in- 
fluence?   Apparently  then,  if  we  are  to  study  unionism, 
we  shall  study,  not  a  narrow  slice  of  reality,  but  society 
as  a  whole  from  one  particular  aspect  or  with  some 
particular  problem  or  series  of  problems  in  mind. 

This  is  one  view  of  unionism  and  the  problem  which 
it  presents.  There  is  another  statement  of  the  matter 
equally  and  perhaps  more  suggestive.  This  is  the  con- 
tribution of  social  psychology.  The  social  psychological 
view  of  unionism  and  its  relation  to  society  may  be 
stated  somewhat  as  follows:  Modern  realistic  social 
science  has  pretty  definitely  reached  the  conclusion  that 
society  is  made  up  of  a  great  complex  of  interacting  and 
interlocking  social  groups.  Each  of  these  groups  is  com- 
posed of  individuals  holding  a  common  viewpoint  in  re- 
gard to  some  vital  social  matter  or  series  of  such  matters. 
For  example,  there  is  something  in  the  nature  of  a  gen- 
eral group  of  employers  and  a  general  group  of  laborers, 
but  both  the  laboring  and  employing  groups  are  again 
split  into  an  indefinite  number  of  smaller  groups,  each 
with  its  peculiar  viewpoint  opposed  to  that  of  any  other 


THE  PROBLEM  7 

group.  In  general,  each  occupation  and  profession  is 
likely  to  constitute,  for  certain  purposes,  a  distinct  group 
with  a  definite  point  of  view.  There  are  religious  groups, 
ethical  groups,  political  groups,  and  social  groups  in  the 
narrower  sense  of  the  term,  such  as,  for  example,  the 
leisure  class,  the  criminal  class,  etc.  As  has  been  said, 
however,  each  of  these  groups  is  to  be  distinguished  by 
the  fact  that  it  is  composed  of  individuals  holding  a  com- 
mon viewpoint  in  regard  to  some  vital  social  matter  or 
series  of  such  matters.  The  possession  of  this  common 
viewpoint  welds  the  individual  members  of  such  a  group 
into  a  more  or  less  permanent  social  force. 

Each  of  these  groups  has  its  own  peculiar  aims,  social 
motives  and  attitudes,  social  principles,  theories  and  pro- 
gram of  action  more  or  less  clearly  formulated,  which  it 
is  struggling  consciously  and  unconsciously  to  realize 
and  put  into  effect  in  society.  Or,  to  put  it  in  another 
way,  each  group  has  its  standards  of  right,  justice,  rights 
and  welfare,  with  respect  to  the  matters  with  which  it 
is  most  vitally  concerned,  and  each  is  attempting  to 
have  these  standards  recognized  and  established  in  and 
by  society.  The  social  will  and  social  action  in  regard 
to  any  matter — as,  for  example,  wage  rates,  hours  of 
labor,  woman  and  child  labor,  the  system  of  education, 
religious  freedom,  the  character  of  the  law  and  the  func- 
tions of  the  state — are  at  any  moment  the  outcome  of 
the  struggle  between  these  groups,  each  attempting  to 
realize  its  own  ideals  and  ends,  subject  always,  of 
course,  to  the  great  underlying  conditioning  factors  of 
physical  nature  and  long  established  social  institutions 
and  conditions  which  themselves  constitute  determinants 
of  group  viewpoints  and  social  will,  and  set  the  limits 
to  what  society  can  do. 


8  TRADE  UNIONISM 

To  make  this  matter  clearer,  let  us  state  it  in  a  little 
different  way.  Social  ideals  are  formed  and  social  ac- 
tion takes  place  at  any  time  within  a  definite  and  rela- 
tively permanent  physical  and  institutional  framework  or 
environment,  the  product  partly  of  physical  laws  and 
partly  of  historical  development.  This  environment  very 
largely  molds  human  nature  and  desires,  sets  limits  to 
social  accomplishment,  and  at  any  time  determines  what 
can  be  done  by  society  and  how  the  fundamental  environ- 
ing forces  must  be  dealt  with  in  order  to  accomplish  the 
socially  possible.  Within  this  fundamental  environment 
and  subject  to  its  molding  and  limiting  influence,  the  so- 
cial will  in  regard  to  any  matter  is  determined  by  the 
interaction  of  a  complex  of  social  groups,  each  with  its 
particular  viewpoint  and  ends,  and  each  struggling  for 
their  attainment. 

If  the  position  thus  taken  by  modern  realistic  social 
science  be  accepted,  it  is  evident  that  social  conditions  in 
general,  and  labor  conditions  in  particular,  cannot  be 
understood  without  a  thorough  study  and  comprehen- 
sion of  at  least  the  most  effective  social  groups  of  which 
society  is  composed,  and  that  a  thorough  understanding 
of  these  groups  is  necessary  also  if  we  are  to  know  what 
ought  to  and  can  be  done  toward  the  betterment  of  social 
conditions  generally,  and  of  labor  conditions  in  particu- 
lar. In  short,  these  important  social  groups  must  be 
intimately  known  in  all  their  varied  aspects  if  we  are 
to  take  any  decided  steps  toward  the  effective  solution 
of  the  multitude  of  harassing  social  and  labor  problems 
which  confront  us. 

Organizations  of  labor — trade  unions,  using  the  term 
in  its  common  and  most  extensive  sense — constitute  one 
or  rather  one  great  series  of  these  interacting  groups  of 


THE  PROBLEM  9 

which  society  is  composed.  As  such,  they  are  an  im- 
portant determining  factor,  not  only  of  the  living  condi- 
tions and  problems  that  confront  the  workers,  but  also  of 
those  which  confront  society  as  a  whole  in  its  struggle 
for  stability  and  betterment.  As  such,  they  affect  vitally 
every  active  individual  in  his  effort  to  work  toward  the 
accomplishment  of  his  own  particular  end  in  life. 

The  ultimate  problem  which  the  student  of  unionism 
is  fitting  himself  to  solve  is  evidently  that  of  control — 
what  ought  to  and  can  be  done  to  control  unionism  in 
the  interest  of  social  welfare  and  of  the  purposes  and 
welfare  of  each  individual.  He  must  arrive  at  judg- 
ments of  it  as  good  or  bad  and  decide  whether  it  should 
be  destroyed,  suffered,  strengthened,  or  modified,  and 
how.  But  none  of  these  things  is  what  should  engage 
him  directly  in  this  study  of  unionism.  The  trouble  is 
the  fog  of  partisanship  and  insufficient  knowledge.  The 
need  is  to  dispel  the  fog,  for  before  any  judgment  can  be 
passed  upon  unionism,  before  any  intelligent  formula- 
tions can  be  made  for  its  control,  a  purely  scientific,  un- 
biased study  of  what  unionism  is,  and  why  it  is  what  it 
is,  is  necessary.  To  prove  this,  to  show  why  this  is  the 
case,  and  farther,  what  knowledge  must  be  had  and  how 
to  go  about  it  in  order  to  solve  the  purely  scientific 
problem,  is  the  object  of  this  preliminary  discussion. 
The  first  question  in  this  connection  is:  What  must  be 
known  in  advance  to  make  it  possible  to  say  what  ought 
to  and  can  be  done  to  control  this  thing  unionism? 
What  kind  of  information  must  be  possessed  before, 
with  any  show  of  reason  or  hope  of  practical  success, 
rules  can  be  laid  down  or  plans  formulated  for  the 
treatment  of  unionism?    Is  it  principles  of  political  econ- 


10  TRADE  UNIONISM 

omy?  Is  it  social  theory  in  general?  Will  mere  study 
of  facts  help  much  ? 

To  approach  the  matter  in  a  little  different  way,  con- 
sider what  steps  the  solution  of  the  problem  involves  and 
then  the  knowledge  necessary  to  take  each  step.  What 
then  is  involved  in  the  problem  of  union  control,  in  terms 
of  the  interests  which  we  have  seen  to  be  involved? 
First,  the  solution  involves,  obviously,  a  judgment  of 
unionism.  Before  it  can  be  said  that  anything  ought  or 
ought  not  to  be  done,  it  must  be  possible  to  say  whether 
unionism  in  its  aims,  demands,  policies,  methods,  and 
effects  is  good  or  bad,  right  or  wrong.  Secondly,  the 
solution  involves  the  formulation  of  practicable  modes 
and  plans  of  union  control,  i.  e.,  modes  and  plans  that 
will  work. 

Let  us  consider  these  questions  separately.  First,  then, 
what  must  be  known  in  order  to  say  that  unionism  as  a 
whole,  or  in  its  specific  aspects  or  acts,  is  right  or  wrong, 
good  or  bad?  One  part  of  the  answer  to  this  question 
is  that  nothing  can  be  judged  until  it  is  known  what 
the  thing  to  be  judged  really  is.  Applied  to  unionism 
this  means  that  before  unionism  can  be  judged  right  or 
wrong,  good  or  bad,  there  must  be  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  its  real  aims,  demands,  policies,  methods,  atti- 
tudes and  results  or  effects. 

The  question  then  arises :  Can  unionism  be  known 
by  reference  merely  to  its  objective  aims,  demands,  poli- 
cies, methods,  attitudes  and  effects — by  the  mere  objec- 
tive facts  of  unionism?  For  example,  unionism  inter- 
feres with  the  effectiveness  of  production,  but  can  it  be 
said,  on  the  basis  of  this  fact  alone,  that  unionism  is 
opposed  to  efficiency?  Not  only  what  the  union  rules 
and  acts  are.  must  be  determined,  but  why  the  unionists 


THE  PROBLEM  it 

lay  down  these  rules  and  do  these  acts.  Unions  quite 
generally  attempt  to  standardize  or  limit  the  amount  of 
daily  or  weekly  accompHshment  of  the  individual  worker 
by  prohibitions  of  "rushing,"  or  too  rapid  work,  and  by 
limitation  directly  of  the  amount  of  work  per  worker. 
On  the  basis  of  these  prohibitions  and  limitations,  the 
statement  has  often  been  made  dogmatically  that  union- 
ism is  opposed  to  efficiency  of  labor;  that  the  unions  be- 
lieve that  wages  can  be  raised  by  decreasing  its  effi- 
ciency. Now  these  charges  may  be  true.  This  question 
will  not  be  settled  here.  The  point  is,  that,  until  the 
objective  facts,  i.e.,  these  prohibitions  and  limitations, 
have  been  interpreted  causally  in  terms  of  the  peculiar 
problem  and  conditions  which  determine  their  enact- 
ment, it  is  not  possible  to  say  whether  or  not  they  bear 
out  the  charge  that  unionism  is  opposed  to  efficiency  in 
production.  Let  us  attempt  this  briefly  and  note  the 
bearing  of  the  outcome. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  wages  of  the  union  workmen  are 
not  determined  automatically  by  demand  and  supply  but 
by  a  process  of  bargaining.  In  determining  the  outcome 
of  this  process  of  bargaining,  the  two  most  important 
factors  are  the  normal  or  standard  day's  work  and  the 
standard  of  living  of  the  workers.  These  are  the  stand- 
ards, practically,  of  right  and  justice  considered.  If 
the  employer  can  make  it  appear  that  under  existing 
conditions  the  workers  are  not  working  or  producing  up 
to  the  standard  day's  work,  he  has  a  strong  case  to  show 
that  wages  ought  to  be  lowered  or  that  more  work 
ought  to  be  done  for  the  same  pay,  which  amounts 
virtually  to  lowering  the  wage.  If  the  employer  fur- 
ther can  make  it  appear  that  at  the  given  wage  rate,  on 
the  basis  of  the  standard  day's  work,  the  workers  can 


12  TRADE  UNIONISM 

secure  a  standard  of  living  higher  than  that  customary 
in  their  class,  he  has  a  strong  case  to  show  that  the  wage 
rate  should  be  lowered,  or  at  least  that  it  should  not  be 
increased.  In  a  contest  under  these  circumstances  the 
employer  is  fairly  sure  of  the  support  of  public  opinion, 
arbitrators,  police  and  courts.  Now,  the  workers  have 
learned  by  long  and  bitter  experience  that  if  individuals 
among  them  work  faster  and  accomplish  more  than  the 
others  while  receiving  the  same  wage  rate,  the  employers 
tend  to  take  the  accomplishment  of  these  workers  as  the 
standard  day's  work  and  to  compare  their  earnings  with 
the  standard  of  living  of  the  class,  when  negotiations 
are  on  to  determine  wages.  Thus,  in  the  case  of  day 
work,  the  accomplishment  of  the  strongest  and  the  swift- 
est is  the  goal  which  is  set  for  all,  if  wages  are  not  to  be 
lowered,  while  in  piece  work  the  wage  rate  tends  to  be 
lowered  because  the  exceptionally  rapid  worker  at  the 
given  rate  can  be  shown  to  make  more  than  is  necessary 
to  maintain  the  customary  standard  of  living.  Under 
these  circumstances  the  increased  efficiency  and  output 
of  the  few  tend  to  mean  less  wages  for  all  or  more  work 
for  less  pay.  All  this  has  taught  the  unionists  that  if 
they  wish  to  prevent  wage  reductions  they  must  all  try  to 
work  at  the  same  pace.  Hence,  one  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  their  program  has  come  to  be  uniformity 
or  standardization.  Their  specific  rule  limiting  speed 
and  output  is  therefore  seen  to  be  primarily  to  establish 
and  maintain  this  principle  of  uniform  accomplishment 
for  a  given  rate  of  wages.  There  is  nothing  about  the 
rule  thus  explained  to  indicate  that  the  unions  would  be 
unwilling  to  respond  to  increased  wages  for  all  by  in- 
creased speed  and  output  by  all  within  normal  physio- 
logical and  social  limits,  i.e.,  there  is  nothing  about  these 


THE  PROBLEM  13 

objective  facts  when  causally  interpreted  to  indicate  that 
unionism  is  opposed  to  efficiency  in  general;  there  is  no 
basis  therefore,  in  this  case,  for  the  common  judgments 
rendered. 

To  take  a  related  case,  the  charge  is  made  that  the 
unions  seek  to  reduce  all  the  workers  of  a  trade  to  a 
dead  level  of  mediocrity  because  they  insist  on  a  uniform 
wage  rate  and  bring  pressure  to  bear  upon  the  worker 
who  outstrips  his  fellows  or  who  does  more  work  for 
the  same  pay.  Again,  if  we  examine  the  conditions,  we 
find  that  facts  do  not  necessarily  bear  out  the  charge. 
The  workers  have  found  by  experience  that  unregulated 
competition  on  their  part  tends  to  a  progressive  lower- 
ing of  the  wage  rate.  The  process  is  simple.  B  out  of 
work  bids  for  A's  place.  A  out  of  work  and  a  weak 
bargainer  bids  for  C's,  C  for  D's,  etc.  That  is,  by  this 
process,  the  competitive  strength  of  the  labor  group  in 
fixing  wages  tends  to  become  the  strength  of  the  weak- 
est member  and  the  wage  for  all  tends  to  sink  to  what 
the  weakest  member  could  competitively  demand.  To 
remedy  this  evil,  unions  have  found  it  necessary  to 
make  the  strength  of  the  weakest  member  equal  the 
strength  of  the  group  by  barring  out  competitive  bid- 
ding on  the  part  of  the  workers.  Merely  establishing  a 
uniform  wage  rate — so  much  per  hour — does  not  bar  out 
competitive  bidding  on  the  part  of  the  workers.  The 
rate  may  be  lowered  as  surely  by  extra  exertion,  the  re- 
sults of  which  we  have  just  seen,  as  by  direct  underbid- 
ding of  the  rate  itself.  Hence,  the  unions  strive  to  make 
uniform  the  exertions  of  the  workers  as  well  as  to  estab- 
lish a  uniform  rate  of  pay.  But,  having  examined  eveit 
very  superficially  the  underlying  conditions  and  motives, 
it  is  seen  that  to  base  on  this  action  the  charge  that  the 


14  TRADE  UNIONISM 

unions  seek  to  reduce  all  workers  to  a  dead  level  of 
mediocrity  is  absurd. 

Or,  to  take  a  closely  allied  example,  it  is  a  fact  as 
stated  that  some  unions  prohibit  piece  work,  and  on  this 
fact  also  the  charge  is  based  that  unions  are  opposed  to 
efficiency.  It  is  true  that  when  unions  oppose  piece 
work  it  is  where  piece  work  stimulates  to  greater  effort 
and  longer  hours  of  work,  but  when  we  come  to  ex- 
amine the  circumstances  we  see  that  the  opposition  comes, 
not  because  the  unions  are  opposed  to  greater  efficiency 
as  such,  but  because  greater  efficiency  secured  by  this 
means  results  in  a  lower  rate  of  pay.  The  prohibition 
is  primarily  to  protect  the  wage  rate,  rather  than  to  pre- 
vent increased  efficiency.  Let  us  see.  The  unions  have 
found  by  experience — and  all  union  notions  have  a  basis 
in  experience — that  in  determining  the  wage  rate  by  col- 
lective bargaining  the  standard  of  living  is  the  most  im- 
portant factor.  If  it  can  be  made  apparent,  or  shown 
to  arbitrators,  that  the  existing  wage  rate  will  furnish 
a  daily  or  weekly  wage  above  the  customary  standard 
of  living  of  the  trade,  as  stated  above,  the  strongest  argu- 
ment is  made  that  wages  are  too  high.  But,  if  it  can  be 
shown  that  the  wages  will  not  allow  living  at  this  stand- 
ard, a  rise  in  rates  can  almost  always  be  forced  or  secured 
by  arbitration.  Now,  when  a  rate  is  established,  the 
stronger  men  are  stimulated  to  work  harder  in  order  to 
secure  a  higher  wage  than  the  customary  one,  and,  in 
some  cases,  the  employers  by  bonuses,  secret  agreements 
or  threats,  attempt  to  drive  the  stronger  and  more  ac- 
tive workers  to  this  extra  exertion.  As  soon  as  this  is 
successfully  accomplished,  and  these  workers  are  earn- 
ing a  wage  above  the  customary  standard,  the  cry  is 
raised  that  the  piece  rate  is  too  high,  and  the  wages  of 


THE  PROBLEM  15 

these  men  are  held  up  as  proof.  In  bargaining  and 
arbitration  much  is  made  of  the  fact  that  at  the  old  rate 
an  active  man  can  make  more  than  is  customary  in  the 
trade.  This  is  the  strongest  sort  of  argument  for  lower- 
ing the  rate  and  often  prevails.  The  result  is  a  progres- 
sive tendency  to  lower  the  wage  rate.  All  have  to  work 
harder  and  longer  for  the  old  wage,  and  while  the 
stronger  succeed  in  maintaining  the  old  standard,  the 
weaker  are  worn  out  and  cast  aside.^ 

The  opposition  to  the  piece  rates,  then,  in  a  case  of 
this  kind,  is  seen  to  be  an  effort  to  protect  the  wage  and 
not  any  direct  objection  to  efficiency  as  such.  On  this 
evidence  it  would  be  absurd  to  sustain  the  indictment 
against  unionism  and  to  say  that  it  should  be  deprived 
of  the  right  to  resist  piece  work.  If  the  union  attitude 
and  action  are  socially  bad,  and  we  wish  to  change  them, 
we  must  go  behind  the  act  of  the  union  and  to  its  causes. 
We  must  change  the  motives  and  the  conditions  which 
link  up  piece  work  with  the  lowering  of  the  wage  rate. 
But  only  by  a  careful  study  of  the  underlying  conditions 
can  we  arrive  at  this  knowledge  and  conclusion. 

Or  to  take  one  more  illustration — a  dangerous  one — 
imionists  are  condemned  as  being  immoral  and  antiso- 
cial because  they  sometimes  enforce  their  will  by  vio- 
lence ;  they  "slug"  the  "scab,"  for  example.  This  shocks 
all  right-minded  people,  and  if  every  one  judged  only  by 
effects  all  would  have  to  join  in  the  condemnation.  But 
consider  what  effect  a  little  careful  analysis  will  have 
on  our  judgment.     The  unions  are  trying  to  raise  the 

'  One  of  the  investigators  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  remarked 
to  the  superintendent  of  a  factory  that  his  workers  seemed  to  be 
tremendously  active.  "Yes,"  he  replied,  "the  piece  rate  is  placed 
so  low  that  the  poor  devils  will  have  to  hustle  to  make  a  living." 


16  TRADE  UNIONISM 

standard  of  living  and  working  conditions  of  the  group. 
It  is  a  most  vital  matter  to  them.  It  means  all  the  dif- 
ference to  them  between  hardship  and  comfort,  strain 
and  comparative  ease,  ignorance  and  leisure  for  informa- 
tion and  education  for  themselves  and  for  their  chil- 
dren. To  accomplish  this  end  they  find  it  necessary  to 
establish  certain  definite  rules  of  the  industrial  game  and 
to  enforce  them.  To  maintain  these  rules  they  spend 
time  and  money  and  sacrifice  the  possibility  of  individual 
gain.  Now  comes  the  "scab."  He  has  not  sacrificed  to 
establish  the  rules  and  he  now  violates  them  for  his  own 
selfish  advantage  and  undoes  the  painfully  established  re- 
sults for  which  the  unionists  have  sacrificed  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  common  good.  He  is  necessarily,  from 
their  point  of  view — the  group  viewpoint — antisocial, 
and  must  be  restrained  just  as  the  thief  is  restrained  by 
society.  But  how  restrain  him  ?  There  is  no  law  to  which 
the  organized  workers  can  appeal  for  the  upholding 
of  their  working  rule  against  underbidding.  They  can- 
not try  to  fine  or  imprison  the  "scab."  Moreover,  moral 
suasion  will  not  ordinarily  suffice  to  restrain  his  un- 
derbidding, since  he  is  either  driven  to  it  by  dire  neces- 
sity or  the  struggle  for  life  has  made  him  callous  to 
social  considerations — to  the  welfare  of  the  group.  The 
only  effective  appeal,  then,  is  to  force.  In  some  cases 
the  blow  is  the  only  argument  that  the  "scab"  can  un- 
derstand. The  "slugging"  is  deplorable,  but  under  sim- 
ilar circumstances  it  would  be  resorted  to  by  most  men. 
How  would  college  students,  for  example,  treat  one  of 
their  number  who  revealed  the  signals  to  the  opposing 
school  before  an  important  football  contest?  The  charge 
of  special  union  immorality  is  hard  to  sustain  under 
these  circumstances,  and  again  we  see  how  impossible 


THE  PROBLEM  17 

it  is  to  arrive  at  any  conclusion  from  mere  effects  with- 
out a  careful  examination  of  the  underlying  motives 
and  circumstances. 

In  order,  then,  to  judge  of  unionism — whether  it  is 
right  or  wrong,  good  or  bad — to  say  what  ought  to  be 
done  about  it,  it  is  necessary  to  know,  first,  just  what 
unionism  is  and  why  it  is,  generally  and  in  each  specific 
case.  This  means  that  we  must  know  who  the  unionists 
are,  what  they  really  want,  their  ideas  and  ideals,  mo- 
tives, purposes  and  aims,  what  are  the  forces  that  mold 
their  ideals  and  drive  them  to  action,  their  standards 
and  modes  of  living,  their  wages  and  conditions  of  em- 
ployment, what  problems  they  have  to  meet,  what  meth- 
ods are  allowed  them  by  custom  and  law  to  meet  and 
solve  these  problems,  how  adequate  these  methods  are, 
what  alternatives  are  open  to  them  for  action,  what  op- 
portunities they  have  for  training  and  advancement, 
and  what  their  philosophy  of  life  is.  In  short,  before 
we  can  judge  unionism,  and  say  what  ought  to  be  done 
about  it,  we  must  know  just  what  unionism  is,  and  why 
it  is  what  it  is. 

There  still  remains  the  other  half  of  the  question, 
What  can  be  done,  i.e.,  what  must  we  know  in  order 
to  formulate  methods  and  plans  for  union  control  that 
will  ivork?  The  point  is,  when  we  have  judged  union- 
ism as  good  or  bad,  right  or  wrong,  and  decided  on  the 
basis  of  this  judgment  what  ought  to  be  done  about  it, 
can  what  ought  to  be  done,  always  he  done?  And  if  not, 
what  must  be  known  in  order  to  say  what  can  be  done? 
To  get  at  the  matter  directly,  if  unionism  is  a  private 
group  manifestation,  can  the  employers  or  any  other 
group  in  society,  aside  from  the  unionists,  formulate  any 
remedial  scheme  in  relation  to  unionism  that  it  finds 


'I8  TRADE  UNIONISM 

good,  and  make  it  work  ?  In  other  words,  society  being 
what  it  is,  can  any  class  do  whatever  it  pleases,  regard- 
less of  the  character  and  causes  of  unionism?  Can  we 
coerce  a  social  group  out  of  existence  while  conditions 
are  as  they  are?  If  not,  why  not?  For  example,  look- 
ing at  unionism  as  a  social  group  manifestation,  would  it 
be  possible,  just  offhand,  to  destroy  unionism,  to  com- 
mand unionists  to  bargain  with  employers  as  individuals, 
or  to  forbid  unionists  to  strike  or  quit  work?  Or,  to 
make  a  stronger  case,  can  unionists  be  made  to  think  like 
employers  or  uplifters? 

The  assumption  that  any  remedial  action  which  any 
group  in  society  may  formulate  in  relation  to  unionism 
can  be  made  to  work,  regardless  of  the  character  and 
causes  of  unionism,  would  be  valid  only  in  so  far  as 
unionism  is  an  arbitrary  thing,  quite  unrelated  causally 
to  fundamental  economic,  legal,  and  social  conditions, 
a  product  of  the  selfish  and  evil  cunning  of  a  few  lead- 
ers or  of  some  unfounded  esoteric  theory  of  social  rela- 
tions. In  so  far,  however,  as  unionism  is  indeed  a  his- 
toric development,  the  outgrowth  of  living  and  working 
conditions  or  ideals  and  motives  created  by  these  condi- 
tions, in  so  far,  in  short,  as  it  represents  the  effort  of 
a  social  group  to  meet  and  solve  the  everyday  problems 
of  living,  forced  upon  it  by  our  system  of  industry  and 
our  legal,  moral,  and  social  codes,  it  is  folly  to  assume 
that  the  character  and  actions  of  unionism  can  be  changed 
or  controlled  merely  by  the  waving  of  a  legal  or  a  moral 
wand;  that  anything  which,  in  the  view  of  society,  ought 
to  be  done,  can  be  done.  For,  in  so  far  as  unionism  is 
of  this  character,  it  is  the  inevitable  outgrowth  and 
corollary  of  our  fundamental  social  and  economic  in- 
stitutions ^nd  ideals.     As  long  as  these  institutions  and 


THE  PROBLEM  19 

ideals  exist,  unionism  must  exist  whether  we  like  it  or 
not.  It  will  change  only  with  the  change  in  these,  in 
spite  of  all  our  efforts.  To  attempt  to  destroy  or  change 
it,  leaving  them  what  they  are,  would  only  mean  to  have 
it  take  the  new  form  necessary  to  meet  the  old  ends  un- 
der the  new  conditions  socially  created.  But  no  one  is 
now  so  Utopian  as  to  believe  that,  at  will  and  offhand, 
we  can  displace  or  essentially  alter  our  fundamental 
institutions.  Hence,  in  so  far  as  unionism  is  a  natural 
and  historical  growth,  it  cannot  be  arbitrarily  affected  by 
social  decree. 

How  then  may  we,  having  determined  what  ought  to 
be  done,  know  what  can  be  done  in  the  control  of  union- 
ism as  it  touches  upon  vital  social  and  economic  inter- 
ests ?  From  all  that  has  been  said,  the  answer  should  be 
clear.  In  so  far  as  unionism  is  a  historical  product,  it 
can  be  changed  and  controlled  only  by  changing  and  con- 
trolling the  conditions  that  have  made  it  what  it  is.  To 
know  whether  this  is  possible  or  not,  and  how  to  do  it, 
we  must  know  these  conditions  and  their  causes.  They 
can  be  determined  only  by  a  genetic  study  of  unionism, 
only  by  an  understanding  of  how  it  came  to  be  what  it 
is.' 

To  the  question  of  what  ought  to  or  can  be  done  by 
society  about  unionism,  no  valid  answer  can  be  given 
apart  from  a  most  searching  causal  inquiry.  It  would 
be  necessary  to  consider  not  only  the  peculiar  problem 
which  the  union  has  to  solve  and  the  reason  why  it  solves 
it  as  it  does,  but  why  the  problem  exists  in  this  form, 
and  why  the  unionists  adopt  the  particular  solution  of 
it.  For  example,  we  should  have  to  determine  why  em- 
ployers meet  increased  efficiency  and  output  of  individual 

^  See  p.  2)7^>  Historical  Method  vs.  Historical  Narrative, 


20  TRADE  UNIONISM 

workers  with  an  attempt  to  lower  the  wage  rate ;  why  the 
customary  standard  of  living  is  taken  by  men  and  mast- 
ers as  the  standard  of  right  and  justice  in  determining 
wages;  why  the  workers  are  not  satisfied  to  accept  a 
lower  immediate  wage — the  result  of  increased  efficiency 
— in  the  hope  of  increased  prospective  wages,  the  result 
of  increased  demand  for  labor  due  to  increased  output, 
as  the  orthodox  economist  would  have  them  do.  Only 
in  answering  questions  of  this  character  could  we  put 
ourselves  in  a  position  to  say  what  ought  to  or  could 
be  done  to  alter  or  better  the  situation,  for  it  must  never 
be  forgotten  that  men's  ideals  and  actions  are  the  out- 
come of  the  circumstances  under  which  they  Hve  and 
act.  Society  should  not  and  cannot  order  a  man  not  to 
do  what  he  must,  nor  to  do  what  he  cannot.  If  it  wishes 
to  change  a  man's  ideals  and  actions  under  such  circum- 
stances, it  must  change  the  conditions  which  determine 
his  ideals  and  actions.  Hence  the  necessity,  in  cases  of 
this  kind,  of  studying  the  why  of  the  conditions.  But 
this  means  that,  in  order  to  determine  what  ought  to  and 
can  be  done,  in  a  case  of  the  kind  we  are  considering, 
we  should  have  to  determine  not  only  what  the  situation 
institutionally  and  psychologically  is,  but  how  it  came 
to  be  what  it  is.  For  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  the 
present  is  a  product  of  the  past,  and  in  a  sense  is  the 
past;  that  our  ideals,  standards  and  institutions  are 
largely  inheritances,  undergoing  slow  modification  by 
present  forces ;  that  as  individuals  and  groups  we  are 
largely  hereditary  products — bundles  of  instincts,  habits, 
propensities,  tendencies,  preconceptions,  prejudices — the 
product  of  past  struggles  with  environment.  In  short, 
to  solve  the  ultimate  problems  of  unionism,  to  determine 
what  ought  to  and  can  be  done  about  it  as  it  touches 


THE  PROBLEM  21 

and  affects  our  economic,  legal,  ethical,  and  general  so- 
cial interests,  we  must  first  study  what  unionism  is  and 
why  it  is  what  it  is,  in  terms  not  only  of  the  immediate 
but  of  genetic  causation.  This  is  the  first  great  task  In 
our  study. 

With  the  problem  clearly  defined,  the  final  question  in 
this  orientation  confronts  us :  How  shall  we  go  about  the 
study  of  unionism;  what  is  it  necessary  for  us  to  do  in 
order  to  discover  the  real  character  of  unionism  and  the 
conditions  and  forces  which  have  made  it  what  it  is?  In 
this  connection  I  want  to  emphasize,  first,  the  matter  of 
attitude  or  spirit.  If  we  hope  to  get  at  the  truth  in  re- 
gard to  unionism  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that  we  should 
approach  the  subject  in  a  scientific  spirit — that  we  should 
preserve  throughout  our  study  the  scientific  attitude. 

What  then  is  the  meaning  of  the  scientific  attitude  or 
spirit?  It  is  putting  aside  as  far  as  possible  all  passion 
and  prejudice,  all  preconceived  notions  in  regard  to  the 
object  of  study,  all  beliefs  and  feelings;  seeking  only  for 
the  truth  and  being  willing  to  follow  it  to  whatever 
conclusions  it  may  lead.  Why  is  this  scientific  attitude 
necessary  in  order  to  arrive  at  the  truth  in  general  ?  Be- 
cause the  truth  as  we  apprehend  it  is  not  an  objective 
thing.  It  is  a  reflex  of  this  thing  upon  our  conscious- 
ness; and,  therefore,  to  our  apprehension  is  determined 
largely  by  the  quality  of  our  mental  furniture.  Every 
impression  upon  the  mind  is  referred  to  the  existent  men- 
tal furnishings  for  identification,  classification  and  inter- 
pretation. On  the  quality,  therefore,  of  the  existing  be- 
liefs, feelings,  prejudices,  presuppositions,  depends  the 
judgment  as  to  the  facts.  As  soon  as  prejudice  enters 
in,  we  will  slight,  or  overemphasize,  or  be  unable  to  see 
things.     Take  as  illustration  the  diverse  interpretations 


22  TRADE  UNIONISM 

of  natural  phenomena  by  primitive  and  modern  men. 
Primitive  man  peopled  the  world  of  nature  with  spirits. 
Every  stick  and  stone  was  endowed  with  consciousness 
and  volition.  To  him  every  movement  of  stick  and  stone 
was  purposeful,  endowed  with  benevolent  or  malevolent 
intent.  When  the  conception  of  a  single  God  arose,  all 
natural  phenomena  were  expressions  of  his  will — his 
wrath  or  his  complaisance — and  were  referred  for  their 
causes  to  the  moral  quality  of  man's  thoughts  or  actions. 
Later,  as  the  scientific  conception  gained  ground,  all  these 
natural  phenomena  have  come  more  and  more  to  be  re- 
ferred to  the  outworking  of  blind,  impersonal,  opaque 
cause  and  effect.  Applied  to  the  subject  of  unionism  it 
means  that  any  one  who  enters  upon  the  study  of  union- 
ism with  any  prepossession  for  or  against  unionism,  with 
any  class  bias,  is  bound  to  have  all  his  judgments  colored 
and  distorted,  and  to  fail  to  see  the  truth. 

Is  there,  however,  any  special  reason  for  emphasizing 
this  matter  in  connection  with  the  study  of  unionism? 
Are  we  specially  prone  to  prejudice,  preconception  and 
partisanship  when  unionism  is  in  question?  Yes.  Be- 
cause unionism  is  a  storm  center  of  the  most  universal 
and  vital  controversy  in  existence — the  struggle  for  a  liv- 
ing. Because,  therefore,  it  not  only  touches  the  individ- 
ual personally  in  his  most  vital  concerns,  but  especially 
arouses  group  prejudices — the  most  bitter  and  the  hard- 
est to  eradicate,  because  they  are  not  the  result  of  the 
thought  of  the  individual,  but  are  inherited  and  bred  in 
the  bone,  and  are  therefore  largely  unconscious.  We 
are  all  full  of  these  group  prejudices,  and  for  most  men 
they  are  in  the  nature  of  absolute  canons  of  judgment. 
It  is  characteristic  of  almost  every  man,  especially  the 
uneducated,  to  look  upon  rules  of  his  group  in  regard  to 


THE  PROBLEM  23 

right  and  justice,  morality  and  rights,  as  something  fixed, 
God-given,  sacred.  There  is  ordinarily  no  conception, 
for  example,  on  the  part  of  the  business  man — the  type 
of  the  bourgeois  middle  class — or  the  unionist  for  that 
matter,  that  conditions  may  alter  rules  of  conduct.  To 
him  there  is  only  one  world — ^his  world — which  was,  is, 
and  shall  be  without  end.  His  judgments,  therefore,  are 
absolute  judgments.  He  cannot  conceive  that  any  one 
who  violates  the  rules  of  thought  and  conduct  of  his 
group  is  not  a  knave  or  a  fool.  Now,  unionism  does  vio- 
late many  of  the  canons  of  right,  rights,  and  justice  of 
the  business  world  and  the  middle  class.  It  opposes  free- 
dom of  the  individual  and  free  contract,  upon  which  our 
whole  legal  structure  rests.  It  has  little  regard  for  the 
sacredness  of  contract  or  ordinary  property  rights.  It 
has  little  respect  for  our  special  code  of  morality;  it 
sneers  at  and  defies  our  courts;  it  stands  face  to  face 
with  a  great  association  of  employers  engaged  in  a  ti- 
tanic struggle  for  supremacy.  As  the  result,  the  whole 
atmosphere  of  union  discussion  is  charged  with  the  most 
virulent  animus;  on  the  one  hand  unionism  is  held  up 
as  the  perfect,  the  only,  social  good,  in  which  there  is  no 
flaw  or  stain.    Says  one  of  its  leaders : 

There  is  not  a  wrong  against  which  we  fail  to  protest 
or  seek  to  remedy;  there  is  not  a  right  to  which  any  of 
our  fellows  are  entitled  which  it  is  not  our  duty,  mis- 
sion, work  and  struggle  to  maintain.  So  long  as  there 
shall  remain  a  wrong  unrighted  or  a  right  denied  there 
will  be  ample  work  for  the  labor  movement  to  do.* 

The  aim  of  our  unions  is  to  improve  the  standard  of 
life;  to  foster  education,  and  instill  character,  manhood,  and 

*  President  Gompers'  Report,  Twenty-ninth  Annual  Conven- 
tion, American  Federation  of  Labor  (1909),  p.  i. 


24  TRADE  UNIONISM 

an  independent  spirit  among  our  people;  to  bring  about 
a  recognition  of  the  interdependence  of  man  upon  his  fellow 
man.  We  aim  to  establish  a  normal  workday,  to  take  the 
children  from  the  factory  and  workshop;  to  give  them  the 
opportunity  of  the  home,  the  school  and  the  playground. 
In  a  word,  our  unions  strive  to  lighten  toil,  educate  the 
workers,  make  their  homes  more  cheerful  and  in  every 
way  contribute  the  earnest  effort  to  make  their  life  better 
worth  living." 

The  trade  union  movement,  true  to  its  history,  its  tradi- 
tions and  its  aspirations,  has  done,  is  doing,  and  will  un- 
doubtedly do  more  in  the  interests  of  mankind  to  humanize 
the  human  family  than  all  other  agencies  combined." 

On  the  other  hand,  unionism  is  denounced  as  the  child 
of  the  devil  and  the  emanation  of  the  pit.  . 

My  denunciation  [says  the  President  of  the  National 
Association  of  Manufacturers]  was  and  is  of  a  defiant  labor 
trust  machine  representing  less  than  5  per  cent  of  the  wage 
earners  of  the  country,  every  page  of  whose  history  is 
black  with  the  foulest  deeds  of  inhumanity  and  injustice, 
from  dynamiting  and  murder  to  throwing  egg  shells  filled 
with  acids  at  dumb  beasts  because  their  drivers  were  not 
cogs  in  the  wicked  labor  machine — a  machine  whose  leaders 
have  indorsed  its  crimes  because  its  demands  could  be 
enforced  through  the  perpetration  of  such  crimes;  a 
machine  whose  leaders  have  for  years  striven,  and  are 
today  striving  to  so  cripple  our  courts  that  no  in  junctional 
interference  can  prevail  in  cases  of  labor  disputes  to  pro- 
tect peaceful  and  law-abiding  workmen  in  their  God-given 
right  to  labor  and  enjoy  the  right  to  life,  liberty  and  the 
purusit  of  happiness,  and  who  are  doing  their  utmost  to 

^  President  Gompers'  Report,  Twenty-eighth  Annual  Conven- 
tion, American  Federation  of  Labor  (1908),  p.  16. 
P  flfid.,  p.  27. 


THE  PROBLEM  25 

secure  release  from  responsibility  to  the  Sherman  Law  under 
which  some  of  them  have  been  tried  and  found  guilty.'^ 

Every  time  an  employer  of  labor  permits  himself  to  be 
intimidated  or  coerced  into  closing  his  shop,  or  other  place 
where  labor  is  performed,  to  all  but  those  who  are  members 
of  this  organization  or  that  .  .  .  and  every  time  he  volun- 
tarily does  so,  he  commits  a  crime  against  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  and  a  sin  against  humanity.  When  he 
willingly  refuses  a  boy  an  opportunity  to  learn  a  trade  be- 
cause a  labor  union  says  the  boy  shall  not  have  it,  that 
moment  he  compounds  a  felony.  When  he  refuses  to  deal 
in  wares  because  a  labor  union  has  placed  its  brand  of 
disapproval  upon  them  he  brands  himself  a  coward  and 
becomes  unworthy  of  the  patronage  of  decent  citizens, 
and  all  such  citizens  should  resent  his  action.  To  tem- 
porize with  or  yield  one  jot  or  one  tittle  to  the  demands 
of  organized  labor  which  in  any  manner  helps  to  increase 
its  power  to  deprive  any  man,  woman  or  child  of  the  free 
untrammeled  right  to  earn  their  daily  bread  in  such  lawful 
manner  as  may  seem  best  to  them,  is  to  share  in  the  respon- 
sibility for  the  criminal  conspiracies  in  which  such  organ- 
izations are  engaged.  Conciliating  and  compromising  with 
crime,  and  juggling  with  the  principles  upon  which  Chris- 
tian civilization  and  justice  are  based,  will  never  solve  the 
labor  question.^ 

This  question  of  belligerent  unionism  is  not  one  of  senti- 
ment. It  is  not  a  question  to  be  trifled  with  or  treated 
with  apathy  or  indifference.  .  .  .  The  thing  in  the  eye 
of  God  is  wrong  and  to  attempt  to  clothe  it  in  the  livery 
of  heaven  only  adds  to  its  wickedness.® 

But  further,  even  academic  and  scholarly  sources  can- 

'  John  Kirby,  Jr.:   "Where  Do  You  Stand?"  p.  18. 

^  Ibid.j  pp.  8,  9. 

»  John  Kirby,  Jr. :    "Disadvantages  of  Unionism,"  p.  37. 


26  TRADE  UNIONISM 

not  always  be  relied  upon  for  calm  and  unemotional  state- 
ments of  the  truth.  They  too  are  prejudiced  and  the 
group  which  might  be  supposed  to  furnish  adequate 
guidance  in  the  search  for  the  truth  about  unionism  is 
not  always  trustworthy. 

Therefore,  it  is  because  of  what  unionism  is  in  its 
viewpoint,  the  interests  which  it  touches,  and  the  nature 
of  its  acts  which  challenge  our  habitual  way  of  looking 
at  things,  and  because  the  literature  of  the  subject  is 
soaked  with  hidden  and  open  partisanship,  that  the  em- 
phasis put  upon  the  scientific  spirit  is  necessary.  We 
must  consciously  attempt  to  expose  our  prejudices  and 
keep  in  abeyance  our  inherited  and  habitual  preconcep- 
tions and  presumptions. 

No  doubt  many  may  think  they  have  no  prejudices  on 
this  subject,  conscious  or  unconscious.  Experience  has 
shown,  however,  that  all  have  prejudices  and  those  most 
sure  they  have  none,  have  most.  Take  sabotage,  as  an 
illustration.  It  is  destructive  action  of  the  workers  ap- 
plied to  the  processes  of  industry,  affecting  the  quantity 
and  distribution  of  the  product.  What  is  the  general 
attitude  toward  it?  x^bsolute  condemnation.  Ought 
there  to  be  the  same  attitude  toward  the  employer  if  he 
practices  sabotage?  Is  there?  The  employer  practices 
sabotage  on  the  consumer  through  "fake"  goods,  through 
adulterations,  patent  medicines,  etc.  How  is  it  regarded  ? 
We  say,  caveat  emptor.  The  employer  is  right  if  he 
can  "get  away  with  it."  We  are  just  now  waking  up  to 
a  different  view.  We  condemn  labor  for  limiting  out- 
put. It  is  a  matter  of  course  that  the  manufacturers 
should  limit  output.  If  it  is  not  immoral  for  the  em- 
ployer to  limit  output,  to  safeguard  profits,  is  it  immoral 
for  the  wage  earner  to  limit  output,  not  to  reduce  profits, 


THE  PROBLEM  27 

but  to  prevent  a  cut  in  wages  that  will  reduce  the  stand- 
ard of  living?  This  shows,  however,  that  we  are  full 
of  unconscious  tolerance  for  things  to  which  we  are 
accustomed.  We  make  the  distinction  between  the  nat- 
ural and  right  as  opposed  to  the  artificial  and  wrong. 
Anything  is  artificial  and  wrong  which  interferes  with 
personal  liberty,  property  rights,  and  free  competition 
(although  free  competition  never  existed),  or  which 
raises  wages  by  combination.  Unionism  looked  upon  as 
artificial  and  unnatural  is  therefore  bad. 

Most  students  will  have  to  guard  against  the  tendency 
to  feel  that  a  thing  is  good  because  it  is  the  established, 
legal,  ethical  or  social  thing.  Some  will  have  to  guard 
against  the  tendency  to  feel  that  a  thing  is  good  because 
it  is  revolutionary  or  iconoclastic.  Every  one  must  school 
himself  to  the  view  that  nothing  is  absolutely  right  or 
sacred;  that  rights  are  merely  the  crystallized  will  of  the 
group  or  groups  dominant  at  a  particular  time,  about 
which  there  is  nothing  absolute  or  sacred ;  that  every- 
thing is  open  to  examination  and  is  to  be  judged  solely 
by  its  effects.  That  is,  it  is  for  each  one  to  put  aside  in^ 
herited  and  group  prejudices  as  far  as  possible,  and,  im- 
bued solely  by  the  scientific  spirit,  to  search  patiently 
for  the  truth. 

As  a  final  word,  and  especially  to  guard  against  errors 
into  which  students  might  easily  fall  and  which  might 
vitiate  the  whole  study,  it  is  well  to  specify  and  make 
clear  some  of  these  errors.  They  are:  (i)  Assuming 
that  unionism  in  some  way  is  easily  understood,  is  defi- 
nite, fixed,  narrow,  a  consistent  thing,  everywhere  the 
same  and  always  the  same,  and  can  be  judged  on  the 
basis  of  economic  principles,  or  of  slight  or  narrow  con- 
tact.    (2)  Assuming  that  it  is  possible  to  tell  what  ought 


28  TRADE  UNIONISM 

to  be  done  with  unionism  without  the  broadest  and  most 
intimate  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  what  and  why  of 
unionism — an  intensive  study  'of  unionism  as  a  matter 
of  group  psychology  and  its  causes.  (3)  Assuming  that, 
having  decided  what  ought  to  be  done,  it  is  possible  to 
proceed  to  action  without  this  study.  (4)  Assuming  a 
social  will  and  social  standards,  which  we  have  not,  be- 
cause society  is  a  complex  of  groups  molded  by  necessity 
and  tradition,  differing  in  standards  with,  as  yet,  no 
social  will.  (5)  Assuming  that  this  study  of  unionism 
can  amount  to  anything  without  combining  with  it  the 
study  of  other  group  psychologies.  (6)  Mistaking  indi- 
vidual standards  of  good  and  bad,  right  and  wrong,  or 
the  standards  of  a  particular  group,  for  absolute  stand- 
ards on  the  basis  of  which  unionism  can  easily  be  judged. 
(7)  Allowing,  therefore,  conscious  and  especially  un- 
conscious prejudices  to  color  the  facts  and  warp  the 
judgment. 

It  is  also  well  to  emphasize  the  necessity  of  getting  into 
close,  first-hand  contact  with  the  reality  in  order  to  know 
what  unionism  is  and  why  it  is,  and,  finally,  what  ought 
to  and  can  be  done  to  control  it.  As  has  been  said,  very 
little  that  has  been  written  about  American  unionism  is 
of  a  scientific  and  systematic  nature.  But  there  is  a 
reason  beyond  this.  Only  by  coming  into  direct  contact 
with  the  unionists  themselves,  studying  their  character, 
realizing  their  conditions  of  working  and  living  in  de- 
tail, studying  their  problems,  their  hopes  and  fears  and 
aspirations,  the  working  of  their  minds  in  their  efforts  to 
overcome  difficulties;  only  by  studying  the  reports  of 
their  conventions,  their  constitutions  and  working  rules, 
their  pamphlets  and  journals,  only  by  watching  them 
closely  in  their  formulation  of  plans  and  in  their  actual 


THE  PROBLEM  29 

contests;  only  by  getting  them  off  guard  or  getting  to 
know  them  well  enough  to  break  down  their  secrecy  and 
reserve  of  hostiHty  or  to  discount  or  interpret  what  they 
say;  only,  in  short,  by  putting  ourselves  as  nearly  as 
possible  into  their  places  can  we  hope  to  get  at  the  real 
character  and  causes  of  unionism. 

To  sum  up  briefly  the  main  points  of  this  orientation : 

1.  Trade  unionism  itself — using  the  term  in  its  com- 
monly accepted  broad  sense — is  one  of  the  most  complex, 
contradictory,  and  protean  of  social  problems. 

2.  The  study  of  unionism  is,  moreover,  beset  with 
peculiar  difficulties,  in  that  the  subject  has  never  been 
adequately  studied  in  this  country,  and  consequently  there 
are  no  adequate  texts  and  guides  in  the  form  of  syllabi, 
and  not  even  agreed  objects  or  purposes  of  study.  The 
materials  for  the  study  are  inadequate,  diffuse  and 
mainly  in  the  raw,  obliging  us  to  go  for  our  study  chiefly 
to  the  original  sources.  And,  finally,  the  whole  subject 
is  involved  in  the  utmost  prejudice  and  partisanship, 
making  it  impossible  for  us  to  accept  what  we  find  at  its 
face  value,  but  requiring,  on  our  part,  the  exercise  of  a 
high  degree  of  keenness  and  judgment  to  untangle  the 
true  from  the  false,  the  real  from  the  seeming. 

3.  All  this  means  that  if  we  are  to  avoid  confusion, 
to  enter  upon  and  maintain  a  clear  line  of  endeavor, 
and  to  attain  results  at  once  valid  and  significant,  three 
things  are  necessary:  a  definite  practical  problem,  a 
clearly  understood  method  of  work,  and  an  attitude  of 
mind  which  shall  guard  us  as  far  as  possible  against  the 
pitfalls  of  prejudice  and  partisanship  which  we  shall  en- 
counter at  every  step  in  our  progress. 

4.  The  ultimate  problem  of  unionism,  as  of  the  practi- 
cal study  of  any  other  group  phenomenon,  is  control. 


30  TRADE  UNIONISM 

This  means  control  not  only  in  the  interests  of  social 
welfare,  but  control  in  the  interest  of  each  individual's 
life  problems,  for  we  have  seen  that  unionism,  in  its 
aims,  principles,  policies,  demands,  methods  and  atti- 
tudes, comes  into  vital  conflict  in  many  ways  with  effi- 
ciency of  production,  by  its  various  rules  hampering  the 
introduction  of  new  machinery  and  processes,  interfer- 
ing with  the  selection  of  men  on  the  basis  of  efficiency 
and  fitness  for  the  task,  preventing  the  speeding  of  men 
and  machinery,  and  in  a  hundred  ways  limiting  or  tend- 
ing to  limit  the  productive  output.  It  interferes  vitally 
with  current  distributive  methods  and  results ;  it  combats 
at  every  point  the  employers'  claims  of  rights  in  the  man- 
agement of  industry;  it  conflicts  with  the  legal  theory 
upon  which  our  social  and  industrial  system  is  based 
and  with  the  established  law  and  order;  in  many  ways 
it  opposes  our  conventional  ethical  standards  and  notions 
of  right  and  justice.  But  we  saw  that  before  this  prob- 
lem of  control  can  be  touched,  before  it  is  possible  to  tell 
what  ought  to  and  can  be  done  about  it,  we  must  be  able 
to  judge  unionism,  and  above  all,  to  understand  it  as  a 
social  group  manifestation.  Finally,  the  hope  of  solving 
this  problem  lies  in  undertaking  the  study  in  a  scientific 
spirit  and  applying  to  it  the  scientific  method,  which 
means  rooting  out  of  our  minds  all  prejudice  and  par- 
tisanship, being  willing  to  follow  the  truth  wherever  it 
leads,  and  getting  into  the  closest  possible  touch  with  the 
facts  as  they  exist,  i.e.,  getting  out  into  the  field  and 
studying  at  first  hand,  finding  out  who  the  unionists  are, 
their  ideas  and  ideals,  the  conditions  they  have  to  face, 
the  problems  they  have  to  solve,  their  actual  aims,  the- 
ories, policies,  methods,  demands  and  attitudes,  and  the 
underlying  motives  and  purposes  and  reasons  for  them. 


CHAPTER  II 

GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  TYPES 

From  the  popular  viewpoint,  trade  unionism  is  a  sim- 
ple, definite  phenomenon  upon  which  it  is  easy  and  safe 
to  pass  positive  and  sweeping  judgments.  Almost  every 
one,  in  fact,  wlio  is  at  all  interested  in  economic  or  social 
affairs  is  inclined  to  assume  that  he  knows  just  about 
what  unionism  is,  and  just  what  ought  to  be  done  about 
it.  The  man  in  the  street,  the  lawyer,  the  economist,  the 
social  worker,  the  teacher,  the  preacher,  each  has  his 
positive  concept  and  his  positive  scheme  for  union  con- 
trol or  regeneration. 

Thus  the  student  honestly  seeking  the  truth  about 
unionism  is  faced  at  the  outset  with  a  mass  of  confident 
but  contradictory  interpretations.  He  is  told  that  union- 
ism is  a  narrow  group  organization  designed  to  benefit 
certain  favored  workmen  at  the  expense  of  all  others; 
that  it  is  an  artificial  monopoly  of  labor,  an  impossible  at- 
tempt to  raise  wages  by  unnatural  and  therefore  socially 
inimical  means;  that  it  is  the  creation  of  selfish  and  un- 
scrupulous leaders  primarily  for  their  personal  gain  and 
aggrandizement,  a  thing  foisted  upon  unwilling  workers 
and  designed  to  disrupt  the  natural  harmony  of  interests 
between  employers  and  employees ;  that  it  is  a  mere  busi- 
ness device  for  regulating  wages  and  conditions  of  em- 
ployment, by  means  of  collective  bargaining;  that  it  is 
a  great  revolutionary  movement,   auning  ultimately  to 

31 


32  TRADE  UNIONISM 

overthrow  capitalism  and  our  whole  legal  and  moral  code ; 
that  it  is  a  universal  expression  of  working  class  idealism 
whose  purpose  is  to  bring  to  all  the  toilers  hope,  dignity, 
enlightenment,  and  a  reasonable  standard  of  living;  that 
it  is,  in  short,  selfish  and  altruistic,  monopolistic  and  in- 
clusive, artificial  and  natural,  autocratic  and  democratic, 
violent  and  law-abiding,  revolutionary  and  conservative, 
narrowly  economic  and  broadly  social. 

And  with  each  of  these  positive  interpretations,  a  stu- 
dent is  commanded  to  subscribe  to  an  equally  positive  and 
final  solution  of  the  union  problem.  He  is  informed  that 
unionism  will  cease  to  be  dangerous  when  it  is  boldly 
proceeded  against  as  a  trust;  that  the  problem  will  be 
solved  when  once  we  have  guaranties  of  industrial  peace 
in  the  shape  of  universal  arbitration  schemes,  voluntary 
or  compulsory;  that  unionism  is  in  any  form  a  menace 
to  social  welfare  and  must,  therefore,  be  destroyed  by 
legal  enactment  and  counter-organization ;  that  the  trou- 
ble with  unionism  is  moral,  and  the  obvious  remedy  lies, 
therefore,  in  moral  suasion  and  the  preaching  of  social 
obligation;  that  unionism  is  the  expression  of  crass 
ignorance,  and  hence  is  to  be  quietly  disregarded  while 
schemes  are  formulated  and  put  into  operation  for  the 
welfare  of  society  as  a  whole;  that  the  real  problem  is 
one  of  encouragement  and  support  since  unionism  stands 
for  all  that  is  best  in  human  conditions  and  relationships. 

The  mutual  contradictoriness  of  these  popular  inter- 
pretations and  remedies  is  sufficient  evidence  to  warrant 
the  rejection  of  any  and  all  of  them,  pending  the  most 
unbiased  and  thoroughly  scientific  investigation  of  the 
facts.  It  must  stamp  them  either  as  pure  fabrications  of 
the  imagination  or  at  best  as  partial  truths,  the  outcome 
of  narrow  observation  distorted  by  conscious  or  uncon- 


GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  JYPES   33 

scious  preconceptions  derived  from  tradition,  interest, 
or  special  environment.  To  accept  them  as  final  truths, 
therefore,  is  to  block  the  way  to  a  real  comprehension  of 
unionism  and  the  union  problem.  For  such  acceptance 
must  mean  the  coloring  of  the  facts  and  the  warping 
of  the  judgment,  however  sincere  and  painstaking  the 
student  may  be.  The  first  step,  therefore,  toward  a 
scientific  understanding  of  trade  unionism  and  the  prob- 
lems which  it  presents  to  us  is  to  rid  ourselves  of  the 
popular  attitude  toward  it,  and  to  root  out  of  our  minds 
as  far  as  possible  these  popular  conceptions  of  it.  We 
must  start  by  wiping  the  slate  clean. 

The  very  existence  of  these  numerous  contradictory 
interpretations,  nevertheless,  carries  with  it  a  pregnant 
suggestion  for  the  student,  namely,  that  trade  unionism 
may  be  after  all,  not  a  simple,  consistent  entity,  but  a 
complex  of  the  utmost  diversity,  both  structurally  and 
functionally.  And,  indeed,  the  most  obvious  facts  of 
union  status  and  history  seem  to  warrant  this  conclu- 
sion, at  least  as  a  working  hypothesis. 

There  are  in  the  United  States  today  hundreds  of 
union  organizations,  each  practically  independent  or 
sovereign,  and  each  with  its  own  and  often  peculiar  aims, 
policies,  demands,  methods,  attitudes  and  internal  regula- 
tions. Nor  is  there  any  visible  or  tangible  bond,  how- 
ever tenuous,  that  unites  these  organizations  into  a  single 
whole.  Groups  there  are  indeed  with  overstructures  and 
declared  common  aims  and  methods.  But  group  combats 
group  with  the  bitterness  that  can  arise  only  out  of  the 
widest  diversity  of  ideals  and  methods. 

A  slight  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  organized 
labor  shows  that  this  situation  is  not  unique,  and  at  the 
same  time  furnishes  the  apparent  clews  to  its  explana- 


34  TRADE  UNIONISM 

tion.  It  reveals  the  fact  that  unionism  has  not  a  single 
genesis,  but  that  it  has  made  its  appearance  time  after 
time,  independently,  wherever  in  the  modern  industrial 
era  a  group  of  workers,  large  or  small,  has  developed  a 
strong  internal  consciousness  of  common  interests.  It 
shows,  moreover,  that  each  union  and  each  union  group 
has  undergone  a  constant  process  of  change  or  develop- 
ment, functionally  and  structurally,  responding  appar- 
ently to  the  group  psycholog}^  and  therefore  to  the  chang- 
ing conditions,  needs,  and  problems  of  its  membership. 
In  short,  it  reveals  trade  unionism  as  above  all  else  essen- 
tially an  opportunistic  phenomenon. 

For,  if  the  history  of  unionism  seems  to  admit  of  any 
positive  generalizations,  they  are  that  unionists  have  been 
prone  to  act  first  and  to  formulate  theories  afterward, 
and  that  they  have  acted  habitually  to  meet  the  problems 
thrust  upon  them  by  immediate  circumstances.  Every- 
where they  have  done  the  thing  which  under  the  par- 
ticular circumstances  has  seemed  most  likely  to  produce 
results  immediately  desired.  Modes  of  action  which  have 
failed,  when  measured  by  this  standard,  have  been  re- 
jected and  other  means  sought.  Methods  that  have 
worked  have  been  preserved  and  extended,  the  standards 
of  judgment  being  always  most  largely  the  needs  and 
experiences  of  the  group  concerned.  So  that,  prevailingly, 
whatever  theory  unionists  have  possessed  has  been  in 
the  nature  of  group  generalization,  slowly  developed  on 
Ihe  basis  of  concrete  experience.^ 

In  making  these  statements,  it  is  not  intended  to  imply 
that  general  economic,  political,  and  social  theories  have 
not  played  a  part  in  the  genesis  of  unions,  or  in  the  mold- 

1  In  all  this,  unionism  is  not  unique,  but  has  obeyed  the  gen- 
eral law  of  psychological  (levelapment. 


GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  TYPES   3.5 

ing  of  their  function  and  structure.  Nor  is  it  intended  to 
deny  that  some  unions  have  been  formed  and  dominated 
by  individuals  and  small  groups  of  leaders.  Idealism 
has  frequently  been  a  genetic  and  formative  force  in 
union  history  and  the  autocrat  has  played  an  important 
role  in  union  affairs.  But  apparently  history  warrants 
the  general  statements  that  unions,  and  especially  unions 
that  have  lived  and  worked,  have  arisen  mainly  in  direct 
response  to  the  immediate  needs  and  problems  of  specific 
working  groups,  and  that  they  have  developed  charac- 
teristically by  the  trial  and  error  method. 

Thus  the  scope  and  character  of  union  ideals  and 
methods  have  been  as  broad  and  diverse  as  the  con- 
scious common  needs  and  conditions  of  the  groups  of 
workers  entering  into  organization.  Some  unions  have 
confined  themselves  to  attempts  to  deal  directly  with  their 
immediate  employers  and  their  immediate  conditions  of 
work  and  pay;  others  have  emphasized  mutual  aid  and 
education;  still  others  have  enlarged  their  field  of  thought 
and  action  to  include  all  employers  and  all  conditions — 
economic,  legal,  and  social.  In  other  words,  the  union 
program,  taking  it  with  all  its  mutations  and  contradic- 
tions, comprehends  nothing  less  than  all  the  various 
economic,  political,  ethical  and  social  viewpoints  and 
modes  of  action  of  a  vast  and  heterogeneous  complex  of 
working  class  groups,  molded  by  diverse  environments 
and  actuated  by  diverse  motives;  it  expresses  nothing 
less  than  the  ideals,  aspirations,  hopes,  and  fears,  modes 
of  thinking  and  action  of  all  these  working  groups.  In 
short,  if  we  can  think  of  unionism  as  such,  it  must  be 
as  one  of  the  most  complex,  heterogeneous  and  protean 
of  modern  social  phenomena. 

But  c?_n  we  thus  think  of  it?    If  all  that  has  been  said 


36  TRADE  UNIONISM 

be  true,  are  we  not  forced  to  this  pregnant  conclusion  as 
the  basic  hypothesis  of  our  study — namely :  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  unionism,  either  in  the  sense  of  an 
abstract  unity,  or  of  a  concrete,  organic,  and  consistent 
whole,  which  can  be  crowded  within  the  confines  of  a 
narrow  definition  or  judged  sweepingly  as  good  or  bad, 
right  or  wrong,  socially  helpful  or  harmful?  If,  then, 
we  dispense  with  narrow  preconceptions  and  face  things 
as  they  actually  are,  and  are  becoming,  it  is  impossible 
to  say  that  unionism  as  such  is  artificial  or  natural,  revo- 
lutionary or  conservative,  violent  or  law-abiding,  mo- 
nopolistic or  inclusive,  boss-ridden  or  democratic,  op- 
posed to  industrial  progress  or  favorable  to  efficiency,  the 
spontaneous  outgrowth  of  legitimate  needs  or  the  prod- 
uct and  tool  of  selfish  and  designing  individuals.  In 
short,  there  is  unionism  and  unionism.  But  looking  at 
matters  concretely  and  realistically,  there  is  no  single 
thing  that  can  be  taken  as  unionism  per  se. 

It  follows  as  a  corollary  that  the  union  problem  is 
neither  simple  nor  unitary.  It  is  not  a  mere  question  of 
wages  and  hours,  of  shop  conditions,  and  of  narrow 
economic  rights  of  employer  and  employee,  and  it  can- 
not be  solved  by  a  mere  resort  to  economic  theory.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  a  complex  of  economic,  legal,  ethical, 
and  social  problems,  which  can  be  understood  and  met 
only  by  knowing  the  facts  and  the  genesis  of  the  view- 
point of  organized  labor  in  all  its  reach,  diversity,  con- 
tradictoriness,  and  shifting  character,  and  by  considering 
this  viewpoint  in  relation  to  developing  social  conditions 
and  social  standards. 

The  study  of  unionism,  therefore,  if  it  is  to  be  fruitful, 
that  is,  if  it  is  to  assist  in  the  solution  of  our  economic 
and  social  problems,   must  Jdc   realistic  and   scientific. 


GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  TYPES   37 

Unionism  is  what  it  is  and  not  what  any  advocate  or  op- 
ponent would  have  it  to  be.  It  is  a  matter  of  fact  in  the 
same  sense  that  institutions,  animal  and  plant  species,  or 
any  other  organic  manifestations  are  matters  of  fact. 
There  is  no  normal  or  abnormal  unionism ;  no  unionism 
that  is  artificial  as  distinguished  from  that  which  is  nat- 
ural. In  short,  there  is  no  fixed  union  norm  by  which 
any  concrete  case  is  to  be  tested;  for  all  unionism  is,  and 
is  becoming,  by  virtue  of  sufficient  causation.  The  prob- 
lems which  it  raises,  therefore,  like  all  other  problems  of 
a  scientific  nature,  are  to  be  solved,  if  at  all,  not  through 
passion  and  prejudice,  and  formulations  of  what  ought  to 
be,  but  through  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  facts  as 
they  exist  and  a  study  of  causes.  It  is  for  the  student, 
then,  to  put  aside  his  preconceptions  and  feelings,  to  get 
close  to  the  realities,  and  to  be  willing  to  follow  the  truth 
to  whatever  conclusions  it  may  lead.  Calmly  and  dis- 
passionately we  must  seek  to  know  unionism  as  it  actu- 
ally appears  in  all  its  phases  and  to  search  for  its  imder- 
lying  causes.  Only  after  we  have  studied  it  and  its  prob- 
lems thus  in  the  spirit  of  the  biologist  or  of  the  student 
of  social  psychology  and  social  institutions,  shall  we  be 
in  a  position  to  say  positively  what  unionism  really  is 
and  what,  if  anything,  should  and  can  be  done  about  it. 
It  is  in  this  spirit  that  the  following  tentative  analysis  is 
presented. 

The  master  key  to  the  real  character  of  unionism  and 
union  problems  is  to  be  found  apparently  in  the  existence 
of  distinct, union  types.  Though  unionism  itself  is  so 
pragmatic  and  therefore  so  protean  as  to  warrant  the 
rejection  of  all  attempts  to  characterize  and  judge  it  as 
a  whole,  it  has  seemingly  developed  along  certain  fairly 
distinct  general  lines,  giving  rise  thus  to  types  sufficiently 


38  TRADE  UNIONISM 

definite  to  allow  of  legitimate  generalization  in  regard  to 
them.  It  appears  possible  to  distinguish  such  types,  both 
as  to  function  and  structure.  Structural  types  have,  in- 
deed, been  recognized  quite  generally  by  students.  Ex- 
amination of  the  history  and  present  status  of  unionism 
in  the  United  States  appears  to  reveal  four  such  types, 
each  objectified  in  a  variety  of  concrete  units;  while, 
somewhat  akin  to  these  distinct  types,  rnay  be  distin- 
guished other  forms  which  may  perhaps  be  regarded  as 
modes  of  transition  from  one  to  the  other. 

Naming  the  structural  types  in  what  hypothetically 
may  perhaps  be  considered  their  natural  sequence  of  de- 
velopment, we  find,  first,  what  is  ordinarily  called  the 
craft  union. ^  This  is  an  organization  of  wageworkers 
engaged  in  a  single  occupation,  as,  for  example,  in  glass 
bottle  blowing,  horseshoeing,  locomotive  engineering. 
The  occupation  may  be  limited  strictly  to  one  simple  task, 
or  may  include  a  number  of  closely  allied  tasks  or  crafts. 
The  strict  test  of  a  craft  union  seems  to  be  that  each 
member  of  the  organization  performs  or  may  perform  all 
the  tasks  included  in  the  occupation.  Usually  a  craft 
union  covers  but  a  fraction  of  the  work  of  a  given  in- 
dustry. The  craft  organization  has  developed  two  prin- 
cipal units,  or  appears  in  two  main  forms ;  the  local  craft 
union,  which  usually  unites  the  members  of  the  craft  or 
occupation  working  in  a  particular  locality — a  town,  a 
city,  or  a  section  of  a  city;  the  national  or  international 
craft  union,  which  unites  into  one  organization  the  local 

*  The  terms  "craft  union"  and  "trade  union"  are  often  used 
interchangeably.  The  writer  prefers  to  make  "trade  union"  the 
general  inclusive  term  covering  all  types  of  unionism,  structural 
and  functional.     This  is  the  popular  usage.  • 


GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  TYPES   39 

units  of  a  single  craft  or  occupation  throughout  the  coun- 
try or  neighboring  countries.^ 

Secondly,  there  appears  what  may  be  termed  the  crafts 
or  trades  union.  This  organization  is  a  federation  of 
unions  in  different  crafts  or  industries.  It  has  developed 
three  principal  forms  or  units :  the  local  trades  union,  or 
city  federation;  the  state  federation;  and  the  national  or 
international  federation,'^  which  unite  through  delegate 
organizations,  respectively,  the  unions  of  a  locality,  a 
state,  or  a  larger  territorial  area.^     Examples  are  the 

^  Examination  of  union  constitutions  reveals  a  surprising 
amount  of  diversity  and  much  individual  variation  in  the  matter 
of  structural  units.  Some  organizations,  for  example,  have  sub- 
locals,  as  in  the  case  of  the  shop  club  of  the  printers,  and  the 
pit  committee  of  the  miners.  There  may  be  also  units  inter- 
mediate between  the  local  and  the  international,  such  as  district 
councils,  state  divisions,  etc.  There  are,  moreover,  such  things 
as  auxiliary  organizations.  It  is  not  intended  here  to  deal  with 
this  matter  in  detail,  but  simply  to  name  the  most  usual  and 
perhaps  the  most  generally  important  units  connected  with  the 
different  structural  types. 

*  These  trades  unions  appear  under  many  different  titles.  For 
example,  the  city  federations  are  known  in  different  localities  as 
trades  councils,  trades  assemblies,  trades  and  labor  councils, 
trades  and  labor  assemblies,  trades  and  labor  unions,  central 
trades  councils,  central  labor  unions,  central  labor  councils,  cen- 
tral federated  unions,  central  trades  and  labor  assemblies,  central 
trades  and  labor  councils,  central  associated  trades  councils, 
labor  councils,  joint  labor  councils,  united  trades  and  labor 
assemblies,  united  trades  and  labor  councils,  federations  of  labor, 
central  federations  of  labor,  etc.  The  state  federations  also  go 
locally  under  different  titles,  and  in  the  United  States  and  Can- 
ada there  is  more  than  one  national  trades  union,  for  example, 
the  Women's  Trade  Union  League,  and  the  Canadian  Trades 
and  Labor  Assembly. 

'  Trades  unions  of  the  same  order  are  not  always  strictly  or 
exclusively  federations  of  organic  units,  and  unions  of  the  same 


40  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Chicago  Federation  of  Labor,  The  Illinois  Federation  of 
Labor,  and  the  American  Federation  of  Labor.  The  es- 
sential characteristic  of  the  trades  union  is  that  the  con- 
stituent organizations  retain  their  individual  independence 
or  sovereignty. 

Thirdly,  we  may  distinguish  the  industrial  union.  This 
type,  as  the  name  implies,  is  organized  on  the  basis  of  the 
industry  rather  than  the  craft.  That  is  to  say,  it  at- 
tempts to  unite  into  one  homogeneous  organic  group  all 
the  workers,  skilled  and  unskilled,  engaged  in  turning  out 
and  putting  on  the  market  a  given  finished  product  or  se- 
ries of  closely  related  products.  For  example,  this  type 
of  union  would  unite  all  the  craftsmen  in  the  direct  em- 
ploy of  brewing  concerns,  including  not  only  actual  brew- 
ers, maltsters,  bottlers,  and  packers,  but  the  engineers, 
firemen,  teamsters,  watchmen,  etc. ;  or,  again,  it  would 
organize  into  one  union  all  the  workmen  in  and  about  a 
coal  mine,  including  actual  miners,  miners'  helpers,  shot 
firers,  drivers,  spraggers,  trappers,  trackmen,  timbermen, 
hoisting  engineers,  check-weighmen,  dumpers,  etc.  The 
actual  connotation  of  this  type  of  unionism  varies  in 
different  productive  lines  and  with  the  integration  of 
productive  enterprise,  but  the  essential  test  of  industrial 
unionism  seems  to  be  that  the  industrial  scope  or  area  of 
the  workers'  organization  shall  be  coterminous  with  that 
of  the  capitalistic  enterprise  or  series  of  closely  related 
enterprises.  The  main  forms  or  units  of  this  type  of  un- 
ionism thus  far  are :  the  local  industrial  union,  a  com- 

order  may  vary  considerably  in  structural  character.  For  ex- 
ample, some  trades  unions  admit  individual  members  and  there 
is  great  variety  in  the  degree  of  centralization  of  authority. 
Nowhere  is  the  pragmatic  character  of  unionism  better  illus- 
trated than  in  such  structural  variations. 


GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  TYPES   4t 

bination  of  all  the  employees  of  a  single  local  industrial 
plant  or  of  all  the  industrial  enterprises  of  a  like  character 
in  a  given  locality;  the  national  or  international  indus- 
trial union,  a  combination  of  all  the  workers  in  a  given 
industry  throughout  the  nation  or  the  international  eco- 
nomic unit ;  the  district  industrial  union,  an  organization 
covering  an  area  within  which  productive  and  market 
conditions  are  essentially  similar.  Thus,  for  example, 
the  coal  mine  workers  are  organized  into  local  unions  at 
the  mines,  into  an  international  union  including  workers 
in  the  mines  of  the  United  States  and  Canada,  and  into 
district  organizations  covering  adjacent  bituminous  or 
anthracite  mines  or  fields.^ 

Fourthly,  there  exists  what  is  technically  known  as 
the  labor  union.  This  type  of  unionism  proposes  the 
organization  of  all  workers  regardless  of  craft  or  indus- 
trial division  into  homogeneous  groups  by  localities,  by 
districts,  and  throughout  the  nation  or  largest  possible 
international  area.  At  present  the  local  labor  union  is 
the  only  existing  unit  of  importance  in  the  United  States 
which  realizes  this  ideal  of  organization,  though  attempts 
have  been  made,  notably  in  the  case  of  the  Knights  of 
Labor,  to  establish  and  maintain  labor  unionism  in  all 
its  ideal  forms,  local,  district,  and  national. 

Besides  these  four  structural  types  of  unionism,  there 
exist  in  this  country  at  least  two  varieties  which  can 
hardly  be  designated  as  distinct  types,  but  which,  strictly 

*The  coal-mine  workers  have  also  subdistrict  organizations. 
The  subdistrict  seems  to  be  based  on  a  uniformity  of  industrial 
conditions,  e.  g.,  thickness  of  vein,  character  of  roof  and  floor, 
etc.,  while  the  district  represents  an  area  within  which  market 
conditions  are  similar.  That  is  to  say,  unions  may  have  both 
territorial  and  industrial  divisions  or  units. 


42  TRADE  UNIONISM 

speaking,  are  apparently  neither  craft,  trades,  Industrial, 
nor  labor  unions.  The  first  of  these  varieties  may  be 
called  the  compound  craft  or  crafts  union.  It  is  a  cen- 
tralized, homogeneous  organization  of  the  workers  in  a 
number  of  related  crafts.  It  differs  from  the  craft  union 
in  that  it  includes  workers  who  do  not  engage  in  the  same 
tasks  or  occupations.  But  it  is  not  an  industrial  union, 
since  it  may  be  one  of  several  labor  organizations  whose 
workers  are  engaged  in  turning  out  a  given  finished  prod- 
uct, or  are  In  the  employ  of  a  single  capitalistic  enter- 
prise. On  the  other  hand.  It  may  overlap  industrial 
divisions.  It  may  be  the  outcome  of  a  formal  consolida- 
tion of  two  or  more  crafts  or  compound  craft  unions,  in 
which  case  it  is  usually  known  as  an  amalgamated  craft 
or  crafts  union.  Examples  of  this  variety  of  unionism 
are  to  be  found  in  the  Amalgamated  Association  of  Iron, 
Tin,  and  Steel  Workers  of  North  America,  the  Amalga- 
mated Meat  Cutters  and  Butcher  Workmen  of  North 
America,  the  International  Association  of  Machinists, 
and  the  Amalgamated  Association  of  Street  and  Electri- 
cal Employees  of  America.'''     In  fact,  a  large  proportion 

^  The  multicraft  character  of  this  variety  of  unionism  may  be 
illustrated  by  the  following  constitutional  quotations : 

"The  Amalgamated  Sheet  Metal  Workers'  International  Alli- 
ance claims  jurisdiction  over  the  following  work:  all  metal 
roofing,  the  manufacturing,  erection,  and  finishing  of  metal  cor- 
nices, metal  skylights,  metal  furniture,  metal  lockers,  hollow 
metal  doors  and  trim,  metal  sash  and  frames,  metal  ceilings  and 
sidings  (both  exterior  and  interior),  all  sheet  metal  work  in 
connection  with  heating  and  ventilating,  furnace  and  range 
work,  metal  jobbing,  assortment  work,  copper  smithing,  and  all 
sheet  metal  work  made  of  No.  lo  gauge  and  lighter;  providing, 
however,  this  gauge  restriction  shall  not  apply  to  coppersmiths 
in  the  working  of  copper  who  shall  have  jurisdiction  over  cop- 


GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  TYPES   43 

of  the  unions,  local  and  national,  in  the  United  States 
are  today  compound  or  amalgamated  craft  unions, 
whether  or  not  so  designated  by  title.  As  this  variety  of 
union  has  special  representatives  in  all  the  intermediate 
structural  stages  between  strict  craft  unionism  and  in- 
dustrial unionism,  it  would  perhaps  be  not  unreasonable 
to  regard  it,  provisionally  at  least,  as  a  mode  of  transi- 
tion between  these  two  distinct  types.  Later  considera- 
tions, however,  must  determine  the  truth  of  this  assump- 
tion and,  if  true,  the  general  direction  of  the  develop- 
mental tendency. 

The  second  structural  variety  of  unionism  which  is 
difficult  to  classify  may,  in  the  absence  of  any  generally 
accepted  designation,  be  termed  the  quasi  industrial  fed- 
eration. It  is  generally  a  federation  of  industrially  re- 
lated craft  and  compound  craft  unions,  appearing  in 
local,  district  or  state,  and  national  units.  Examples  of  it 
are  to  be  seen  in  local  printing  trades,  and  local  building 
trades  councils,  in  state  building  trades  councils  and 
system  federations  of  railway  employees,  and  in  the 
building  trades,  metal  trades  and  railroad  employees'  de- 

per  of  any  and  all  gauges."  (Constitution  [191 1]>  Art.  VI,  §  2.) 
"The  Amalgamated  Association  (Amalgamated  Glass  Work- 
ers' International  Association  of  America)  shall  consist  of  an 
unlimited  number  of  local  unions  composed  of  trustworthy  and 
industrious  glass  workers,  consisting  of  the  following  branches : 
glass  cutters,  lead  glazers,  metal  sash  glazers,  prism  glazers,  bev- 
elers,  silverers,  scratch  polishers,  embossers,  engravers,  design- 
ers, glass  painters,  draftsmen,  sandblast  workers,  glass  shippers, 
glass  mosaic  workers,  setters,  putty  glazers,  cementers,  benders, 
flat  glass  or  wheel  cutters,  glass  signmakers,  glass  packers,  plate 
glass  workers,  and  all  wageworkers  engaged  in  the  production 
and  handling  of  glass  not  already  affiliated  with  a  national  or 
international  union  of  glass  workers."  (Constitution  [1905], 
§3.) 


44  TRADE  UNIONISM 

partments  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor.^  This 
variety  of  unionism  is  one  in  which  the  constituent  craft 
or  amalgamated  craft  unions  retain  their  individual  sov- 
ereignty, yet  appear  and  act  as  a  single  organization  with 
respect  to  designated  affairs  of  common  interests.  It 
resembles  both  the  trades  union  and  the  industrial  union 
types,  but  differs  from  each  essentially.  It  is  a  narrower 
and  closer  association  than  the  trades  union  and  is  vitally 
unlike  it  in  the  scope  and  character  of  its  activities.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  lacks  the  organic  homogeneity  and 
centralization  of  the  industrial  union.  As  it  is  in  every 
case,  roughly  speaking,  an  organization  within  a  particu- 
lar industry,  and  as  its  aims  and  activities  approximate — 
as  far  as  they  go — those  of  the  industrial  union  type,  it 
may  perhaps  be  regarded  also  as  an  intermediate  phase — 
a  mode  of  transition  between  the  craft  and  the  industrial 
union.  Whether  it  represents  thus  a  continuous  evolu- 
tionary process,  and,  if  so,  what  the  nature  of  the  process 
is,  will  appear  from  later  considerations. 

As  we  have  said,  the  existence  of  distinct  structural 
types  and  varieties  of  unionism  has  quite  generally  been 
recognized,  and  it  has  been  noted  further  that  union 
function  tends  to  vary  somewhat  with  the  variation  in 
structure.  It  seems  possible,  however,  to  go  much 
further  than  this  in  the  general  functional  analysis  of 
unionism.  A  penetrating  study  of  the  union  situation, 
past  and  present,  seems,  in  fact,  to  warrant  the  recogni- 
tion of  functional  types  quite  as  distinct  in  their  essential 
characteristics  as  the  diverse  structural  manifestations. 

^  This  variety  shades  into  the  real  industrial  federation,  an 
example  of  which  is  found  in  the  mining  department  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor. 


GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  TYPES   45 

It  is  true  that  these  functional  types  do  not  in  practice 
represent  exactly  and  exckisively  the  ideas  and  activities 
of  any  particular  union  organization  or  group.  That  is 
to  say,  no  union  organization  functions  strictly  and  con- 
sistently according  to  type.  Yet  as  representing  as  fairly 
distinct  alternative  programs  of  union  action,  and  as 
guides  to  the  essential  character  and  significance  of  the 
diverse  organizations  and  groups  included  in  the  hetero- 
geneous union  complex,  these  functional  types  apparently 
do  exist,  and  are  of  the  most  vital  concern  to  the  student 
of  unionism.  There  are  seemingly  four  of  these  distinct 
types,  two  of  w^hich  present  dual  variations. 

The  first  and  perhaps  most  clearly  recognizable  func- 
tional type  may  be  termed  business  tinionisin.  Business 
unionism  appears  most  characteristically  in  the  programs 
of  local  and  national  craft  and  compound  craft  organi- 
zations. It  is  essentially  trade-conscious,  rather  than 
class-conscious.  That  is  to  say,  it  expresses  the  view- 
point and  interests  of  the  workers  in  a  craft  or  industry 
rather  than  those  of  the  working  class  as  a  whole.  It  aims 
chiefly  at  more,  here  and  now,  for  the  organized  workers 
of  the  craft  or  industry,  in  terms  mainly  of  higher  wages, 
shorter  hours,  and  better  working  conditions,  regardless 
for  the  most  part  of  the  welfare  of  the  workers  out- 
side the  particular  organic  group,  and  regardless  in  gen- 
eral of  political  and  social  considerations,  except  in  so  far 
as  these  bear  directly  upon  its  own  economic  ends.  It  is 
conservative  in  the  sense  that  it  professes  belief  in  natural 
rights,  and  accepts  as  inevitable,  if  not  as  just,  the  ex- 
isting capitalistic  organization  and  the  wage  system,  as 
well  as  existing  property  rights  and  the  binding  force  of 
contract.  It  regards  unionism  mainly  as  a  bargaining 
institution  and  seeks  its  ends  chiefly  through  collective 


46  TRADE  UNIONISM 

bargaining,  supported  by  such  methods  as  experience 
from  time  to  time  indicates  to  be  effective  in  sustaining 
and  increasing  its  bargaining  power.  Thus  it  is  likely  to 
be  exclusive,  that  is,  to  limit  its  membership,  by  means 
of  the  apprenticeship  system  and  high  initiation  fees 
and  dues,  to  the  more  skilled  workers  in  the  craft  or  in- 
dustry, or  even  to  a  portion  of  these;  though  it  may, 
where  immediate  circumstances  dictate,  favor  a  broadly 
inclusive  policy — when,  for  example,  the  unregulated 
competition  of  the  unorganized  and  the  unskilled  seriously 
threatens  to  sweep  aside  the  trade  barriers  and  break 
down  the  standards  of  wages,  hours  and  shop  conditions 
it  has  erected.  Under  these  circumstances  it  tends  to 
develop  a  broad  altruism  and  to  seek  the  organization  of 
all  the  workers  in  the  craft  or  industry.  In  harmony  with 
its  business  character  it  tends  to  emphasize  discipline 
within  the  organization,  and  is  prone  to  develop  strong 
leadership  and  to  become  somewhat  autocratic  in  govern- 
ment, though  government  and  leaders  are  ordinarily  held 
pretty  strictly  accountable  to  the  pragmatic  test.  When 
they  fail  to  "deliver  the  goods"  both  are  likely  to  be  swept 
aside  by  a  democratic  uprising  of  the  rank  and  file.  In 
method,  business  unionism  is  prevailingly  temperate  and 
economic.  It  favors  voluntary  arbitration,  deprecates 
strikes,  and  avoids  political  action,  but  it  will  refuse  ar- 
bitration, and  will  resort  to  strikes  and  politics  when  such 
action  seems  best  calculated  to  support  its  bargaining 
efforts  and  increase  its  bargaining  power.  This  type  of 
unionism  is  perhaps  best  represented  in  the  program  of 
the  railroad  brotherhoods,  though  these  organizations,  as 
we  shall  see  later,  present  some  characteristics  of  a  vitally 
different  nature. 

The  second  union  functional  type  seems  best  designated 


GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  TYPES   47 

by  the  terms,  friendly  or  uplift  unionism.  Uplift  union- 
ism, as  its  name  indicates,  is  characteristically  idealistic  in 
its  viewpoint.  It  may  be  trade-conscious,  or  broadly 
class-conscious,  and  at  times  even  claims  to  think  and 
act  in  the  interest  of  society  as  a  whole.  Essentially  it 
is  conservative  and  law-abiding.  It  aspires  chiefly  to  ele- 
vate the  moral,  intellectual,  and  social  life  of  the  worker, 
to  improve  the  conditions  under  which  he  works,  to 
raise  his  material  standards  of  living,  give  him  a  sense 
of  personal  worth  and  dignity,  secure  for  him  the  leisure 
for  culture,  and  insure  him  and  his  family  against  the 
loss  of  a  decent  livelihood  by  reason  of  unemployment, 
accident,  disease,  or  old  age.  Uplift  unionism  varies 
greatly  in  degree  of  inclusiveness,  and  in  form  of  gov-- 
ernment.  But  the  tendency  seems  to  be  toward  the  greats 
est  practicable  degree  of  mutuality  and  democracy.  In 
method,  this  type  of  unionism  employs  collective  bar- 
gaining, but  stresses  mutual  insurance,  and  drifts  easily 
into  political  action  and  the  advocacy  of  cooperative  en- 
terprises, profit-sharing,  and  other  idealistic  plans  for 
social  regeneration.  The  nearest  approach  in  practice  to 
uplift  unionism  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in  the  program 
of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  though  that  organization  has 
varied  in  many  respects  from  the  strict  type.® 

As  a  third  distinct  functional  type,  we  have  what  most 

*  It  has  been  strongly  urged  by  a  friendly  critic,  who  is  most 
intimately  acquainted  with  the  organized  labor  movement  in  the 
United  States,  that  business  and  uplift  unionism  are  not  in  real- 
ity distinct  and  independent  types,  but  rather  two  varieties  of 
one  type  more  comprehensive  than  either.  The  argument  put 
forward  is  that  no  business  union  can  be  found  which  has  not 
also  the  uplift  in  mind,  and  an  idealistic  viewpoint.  It  is  sug- 
gested that  this  inclusive  type  might  be  called  bargaining  union- 
ism or  constructive  business  unionism. 


48  TRADE  UNIONISM 

appropriately  may  be  called  revolutionary  tmionism. 
Revolutionary  unionism,  as  the  term  implies,  is  extremely 
radical  both  in  viewpoint  and  in  action.  It  is  distinctly 
class-conscious  rather  than  trade-conscious.  That  is  to 
say,  it  asserts  the  complete  harmony  of  interests  of  all 
wageworkers  as  against  the  representatives  of  the  em- 
ploying class,  and  seeks  to  unite  the  former,  skilled  and 
unskilled  together,  into  one  homogeneous  fighting  organi- 
zation. It  repudiates,  or  tends  to  repudiate,  the  existing 
institutional  order  and  especially  individual  ownership 
of  productive  means,  and  the  wage  system.  It  looks 
upon  the  prevailing  modes  of  right  and  rights,  moral  and 
legal,  as,  in  general,  fabrications  of  the  employing  class, 
designed  to  secure  the  subjection  and  to  further  the  ex- 
ploitation of  the  workers.  In  government  it  aspires  to 
be  democratic,  striving  to  make  literal  application  of  the 
phrase  vox  populi,  vox  Dei.  In  method,  it  looks  askance 
at  collective  bargaining  and  mutual  insurance  as  making 
for  conservatism  and  hampering  the  free  and  united  ac- 
tion of  the  workers. 

Of  this  revolutionary  type  of  unionism  there  are  ap- 
parently two  distinct  varieties.  The  first  finds  its  ulti- 
mate ideal  in  the  socialistic  state  and  its  ultimate  means 
in  invoking  class  political  action.  For  the  present  it  does 
not  entirely  repudiate  collective  bargaining  or  the  bind- 
ing force  of  contract,  but  it  regards  these  as  temporary 
expedients.  It  would  not  now  amalgamate  unionist  and 
socialist  organizations,  but  would  have  them  practically 
identical  in  membership  and  entirely  harmonious  in  ac- 
tion. In  short,  it  looks  upon  unionism  and  socialism  as 
the  two  wings  of  the  working  class  movement.  The  sec- 
ond variety  of  revolutionary  unionism  repudiates  alto- 
gether socialism,  political  action,  collective  bargaining, 


GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  TYPES   49 

and  contract.  Socialism  is  to  it  but  another  form  of  op- 
pression, political  action  a  practical  delusion,  collective 
bargaining  and  contract  schemes  of  the  oppressor  for 
preventing  the  united  and  immediate  action  of  the  work- 
ers. It  looks  forward  to  a  society  based  upon  free  in- 
dustrial association,  and  finds  its  legitimate  means  in 
agitation,  rather  than  in  methods  which  look  to  immedi- 
ate betterment.  Direct  action  and  sabotage  are  its  ac- 
credited weapons,  and  violence  its  habitual  resort.  These 
varieties  of  the  revolutionary  type  may  be  termed  re- 
spectively socialistic  and  quasi  anarchistic  unionism.^^ 
The  former  is  perhaps  most  clearly  represented  in  the 
United  States  by  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners,^^ 
the  latter  by  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World. ^^ 

Finally,  in  the  union  complex,  it  seems  possible  to  dis- 
tinguish a  mode  of  action  sufficiently  definite  in  its  char- 

^°  By  many  it  would  seem  more  appropriate  to  designate  the 
second  variety  as  syndicalist  unionism.  The  name  quasi  anar- 
chistic has  been  chosen,  however,  because  there  appears  to  be 
as  yet  little  real  syndicalism  in  the  United  States,  and,  further, 
because  quasi  anarchistic  is  the  more  inclusive  term.  It  leaves 
open  the  opportunity  for  further  subclassification  should  the 
conditions  warrant. 

^'^  The  present  methods  of  this  organization,  now  known  as 
the  International  Union  of  Mine,  Mill  and  Smelter  Workers, 
are,  in  general,  those  of  business  unionism.     [Eds.] 

^2  In  strict  justice  it  must  be  stated  that  there  are  two  general 
organizations  in  this  country  claiming  to  be  known  as  the  Indus- 
trial Workers  of  the  World.  The  first,  the  parent  body,  has  its 
headquarters  in  Chicago;  the  second,  an  oflfshoot,  is  officially 
located  in  Detroit.  The  latter  is  a  representative  of  the  first 
revolutionary  variant.  That  is,  it  advocates  political  action  and 
supports  one  of  the  Socialist  parties.  In  ordinary  usage,  the 
term  I.  W.  W.  applies  to  the  Chicago  organization,  and  when 
unmodified  is  to  be  so  understood  in  these  pages. 


50  TRADE  UNIONISM 

acter  and  genesis  to  warrant  the  designation,  predatory 
unionism.  This  type,  if  it  be  truly  such,  cannot  be  set 
apart  on  the  basis  of  any  ultimate  social  ideals  or  theory. 
It  may  be  essentially  conservative  or  radical,  trade-con- 
scious or  class-conscious.  It  appears  to  aim  solely  at  im- 
mediate ends  and  its  methods  are  wholly  pragmatic.  In 
short,  its  distinguishing  characteristic  is  the  ruthless  pur- 
suit of  the  thing  in  hand  by  whatever  means  seem  most 
appropriate  at  the  time,  regardless  of  ethical  and  legal 
codes  or  effect  upon  those  outside  its  own  membership. 
It  may  employ  business,  friendly,  or  revolutionary  meth- 
ods. Generally,  its  operations  are  secret,  and  apparently 
it  sticks  at  nothing. 

Of  this  assumed  union  type  also  there  appear  to  be  two 
varieties.  The  first  may  be  termed  hold-up  uniotiism. 
This  variety  is  usually  to  be  found  in  large  industrial 
centers,  masquerading  as  business  unionism.  In  out- 
ward appearance  it  is  conservative ;  it  professes  a  belief 
in  harmony  of  interests  between  employer  and  employee; 
it  claims  to  respect  the  force  of  contract;  it  operates 
openly  through  collective  bargaining,  and  professes  re- 
gard for  law  and  order.  In  reality  it  has  no  abiding 
principles,  and  no  real  concern  for  the  rights  or  welfare 
of  outsiders.  Prevailingly  it  is  exclusive  and  monopolis- 
tic. Generally  it  is  boss-ridden  and  corrupt,  the  member- 
ship for  the  most  part  being  content  to  follow  blindly  the 
instructions  of  the  leaders  so  long  as  they  "deliver  the 
goods."  Frequently  it  enters  with  the  employers  of  the 
group  into  a  double-sided  monopoly  intended  to  eliminate 
both  capitalistic  and  labor  competition,  and  to  squeeze 
the  consuming  public.  With  the  favored  employers,  it 
bargains  not  only  for  the  sale  of  its  labor,  but  for  the 
destruction  of  the  business  of  rival  employers  and  the 


GENERAL  CHARACTER  AND  TYPES   51 

exclusion  of  rival  workmen  from  the  craft  or  industry. 
On  the  whole  its  methods  are  a  mixture  of  open  bargain- 
ing coupled  with  secret  bribery  and  violence.  This  vari- 
ety of  unionism  has  been  exemplified  most  frequently 
among  the  building  trades  organizations  under  the  leader- 
ship of  men  like  the  late  notorious  "Skinney"  Madden. 
The  second  variety  of  predatory  labor  organization 
may  be  called,  for  want  of  a  better  name,  guerilla  union- 
ism. This  variety  resembles  the  first  in  the  absence  of 
fixed  principles  and  in  the  ruthless  pursuit  of  immediate 
ends  by  means  of  secret  and  violent  methods.  It  is  to 
be  distinguished  from  hold-up  unionism,  however,  by  the 
fact  that  it  operates  always  directly  against  its  employers, 
never  in  combination  with  them,  and  that  it  cannot  be 
bought  off.  It  is  secret,  violent,  and  ruthless,  seemingly 
because  it  despairs  of  attaining  what  it  considers  to  be 
legitimate  ends  by  business,  uplift,  or  revolutionary 
methods.  This  union  variant  has  been  illustrated  recently 
in  the  campaign  of  destruction  carried  on  by  the  Bridge 
and  Structural  Iron  Workers.^^ 

^^  It  has  been  suggested  that  there  is  still  another  functional 
union  type  which  might  be  called  dependent  unionism.  It  is  well 
known  that  there  are  unions  whose  existence  is  dependent  wholly 
or  in  large  part  upon  other  unions  or  upon  the  employers.  Some 
unions,  for  example,  could  not  exist  except  for  their  labels, 
which  secure  a  special  market  among  other  unionists  or  union 
sympathizers  for  the  goods  which  they  turn  out.  Such  unions 
are  sometimes  demanded  or  initiated  by  the  employers,  who  see 
in  the  label  a  good  commercial  asset.  Again,  there  are  unions 
instigated  and  practically  dominated  by  employers,  organized 
and  conducted  on  especially  conservative  lines  with  the  purpose 
of  combating  or  displacing  independent  unionism.  We  may 
then,  perhaps,  be  justified  in  recognizing  here  a  fifth  functional 
type  with  twp  subordinate  varieties. 


52  TRADE  UNIONISM 

The  writer  is  aware  that,  apparently,  strong  objections 
may  be  urged  against  the  assumption  that  these  diverse 
expressions  of  union  viewpoint  and  action  represent  true 
functional  types. ^*  It  has  been  admitted  that  probably 
the  ideals  and  modes  of  action  of  no  particular  union 
organization  correspond  exactly  to  any  one  of  these  so- 
called  types.  It  is  a  fact,  moreover,  that  the  programs 
of  most  unions  are  undergoing  a  pretty  constant  process 
of  change  and  sometimes  shift  rapidly.  It  is  true  further 
that  the  membership  of  any  union  may  include  represen- 
tatives of  all  kinds  of  unionism — business,  uplift,  revolu- 
tionary, and  predatory.  It  might  then  be  argued  that 
what  have  here  been  called  types  are  mere  individual 
attitudes,  or,  at  most,  aspects  or  tendencies  of  one  and 
the  same  union  species.  It  will  be  the  purpose  of  succeed- 
ing chapters,  therefore,  to  test  the  reality  of  these  as- 
sumed types  and  varieties,  and  to  interpret  them  causally 
by  means  of  a  brief  study  of  the  genesis  and  development 
of  organized  labor  in  the  United  States.  Incidentally 
this  study  should  reveal  also  the  general  laws  of  union 
development. 

^4  The  writer  is  also  fully  alive  to  the  fact  that  no  first  at- 
tempt at  functional  analysis  of  unionism  can  be  regarded  as 
final,  and  will  welcome  any  and  all  criticism  and  cooperation 
that  may  lead  to  greater  accuracy  in  this  respect. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  AND  THE  INTERPRE- 
TATION OF  UNION  TYPES 

In  the  preceding  chapter,  on  the  general  character  and 
types  of  trade  unionism,  two  leading  propositions  were 
advanced  as  working  hypotheses  for  the  interpretation  of 
the  facts :  first,  that  unionism  is  not  a  unified,  consistent 
entity;  secondly,  that  what  is  called  unionism  is  in  reality 
the  manifold  expression  of  a  series  of  distinct  and  essen- 
tially contradictory  types  and  varieties.  Such  types  and 
varieties  were  distinguished  tentatively  with  respect  to 
both  structure  and  function,  and  the  leading  representa- 
tives in  each  division  were  briefly  characterized  as  they 
appear  to  exist  in  the  United  States  today.  Thus,  struc- 
turally, the  union  complex  was  analyzed  into  six  main 
forms  of  organization,  each  represented  by  a  series  of 
territorial  and  sometimes  industrial  units;  viz.,  the  craft 
union,  the  trades  union,  the  compound  craft  union,  the 
quasi  industrial  union,  the  industrial  union,  and  the  labor 
union.  Functionally,  the  attempt  was  made  to  distinguish 
four  main  types  and  four  subordinate  varieties;  viz., 
business  unionism,  uplift  unionism,  revolutionary  union- 
ism, and  predatory  unionism  as  types ;  ^  socialistic  and 
quasi  anarchistic  unionism  as  varieties  of  the  revolution- 

^  A  possible  fifth  type  was  also  suggested,  viz.,  dependent 
unionism. 

53 


54  TRADE  UNIONISM 

ary  t^pe,  hold-up  and  guerrilla  unionism  as  variants  of 
the  predatory  type. 

This  discussion  of  the  general  character  and  types  of 
unionism  was  professedly  tentative  and  suggestive.  At 
its  close  the  writer  admitted  that  apparently  strong  ob- 
jections might  be  urged  against  the  hypotheses  advanced. 
Therefore,  in  view  of  their  supreme  importance  in  con- 
nection with  the  whole  interpretation  of  unionism,  our 
judgments  of  it,  and  any  practical  proposals  with  regard 
to  it,  the  promise  was  made  to  subject  their  validity  at 
once  to  the  inductive  or  historical  test.  Specifically 
stated,  this  requires  us,  if  our  hypotheses  are  to  be  main- 
tained, to  prove  by  reference  to  undisputed  facts,  past 
and  present,  that  these  union  types  do  exist  as  described, 
and  that  their  nature  and  relationships  are  such  as  to 
allow  of  no  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  unionism  is 
essentially  a  series  of  independent  group  manifestations 
which  from  the  practical  standpoint  cannot  be  interpreted, 
evaluated,  and  judged  as  a  simple  consistent  whole,  or  as 
a  succession  of  more  or  less  accidental  and  temporary 
variations  from  a  single  normal  type. 

At  first  blush  the  process  of  proof  here  required  ap- 
pears to  be  very  simple.  It  would  seem  necessary  merely 
to  furnish  undisputed  evidence  of  the  existence,  past  and 
present,  of  unions  or  union  groups  possessing  the  char- 
acteristics of  these  assumed  types.  A  moment's  thought, 
however,  makes  it  clear  that  something  other  than  this  is 
required  to  prove  that  unionism  is  in  reality  nonunitary 
in  character.  For  it  is  evident  that  the  mere  successive 
existence  of  such  variations  in  the  past  might  in  itself  in- 
dicate only  adaptations  of  one  and  the  same  unionism  to 
a  changing  environment,  while  their  present  existence 
alone  might  be  evidence  either   of   survivals   of  past 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  55 

adaptations  destined  shortly  to  disappear  or  of  merely 
temporary  aberrations  from  the  normal.  In  either  case, 
if  nothing  more  were  adduced  it  would  be  possible  still 
to  regard  unionism  as  a  single  definite  entity,  since  suc- 
cessive adaptations  of  a  species  to  alterations  in  environ- 
ment do  not  necessarily  destroy  its  identity,  nor  do  con- 
current variations,  unless  these  become  permanently  es- 
tablished as  conflicting  or  rival  forms. 

What,  then,  are  the  real  tests  or  criteria  of  distinct 
union  types,  and  what  is  the  process  of  proof  necessary 
to  establish  their  existence?  It  is  evident  that  to  answer 
this  question  with  assurance,  and  therefore  to  remove 
all  doubt  in  regard  to  the  mode  of  procedure  here  de- 
manded, a  more  thorough  understanding  is  required  of 
the  nature  and  interdependence  of  these  union  variants 
which  we  have  described.  This  involves  a  positive  in- 
terpretation of  unionism  in  terms  of  its  general  func- 
tional and  structural  character  and  relationships.  Let 
us  then  attempt  to  indicate  clearly  the  essential  quality 
and  conditions  of  existence  of  this  combination  of  func- 
tion and  structure  called  unionism. 

Students  in  general  have  approached  unionism  on  the 
structural  side,  and  have  treated  it  as  though  the  union 
were  essentially  an  organic  unit  with  certain  functional 
attributes ;  and  hitherto  we  have  spoken  of  the  functional 
and  structural  forms  as  though  they  were  independent 
and  coordinate  expressions  of  unionism.  Both  of  these 
attitudes  are  untenable.  From  the  standpoint  of  motives 
and  ends,  as  well  as  from  that  of  its  character  and  signifi- 
cance as  a  social  problem,  the  real  unionism — its  primary 
and  essential  expression — is  functional.  The  structural 
form  is  altogether  secondary  and  dependent.    This  will 


56  TRADE  UNIONISM 

be  made  evident  by  a  brief  analysis  of  the  motives  which 
actuate  prospective  unionists  and  the  manner  and  pur- 
poses for  which  the  union  is  brought  into  being. 

What  concerns  men  primarily  in  their  social  relation- 
ships as  ends  to  be  striven  for  is  not  forms  of  organiza- 
tions but  standards  of  living — using  this  phrase  to  cover 
not  merely  the  narrow  economic  aspect  of  life  but  social 
standards  generally,  including  moral  and  judicial  as  well 
as  material  conditions,  rights,  and  privileges.  As  social 
beings  we  are  all  concerned  primarily  with  the  problem 
of  living  as  presented  by  these  conditions  and  standards ; 
and  our  attention  is  focused  on  the  solution  of  this  prob- 
lem in  terms  of  our  particular  needs  and  the  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances which  we  have  to  face  and  overcome.  In 
our  efforts  to  comprehend  and  solve  this  problem  each  of 
us  develops  more  or  less  completely  and  systematically  an 
interpretation  of  life — an  explanation  of  things  as  they 
are  in  terms  of  the  conditions  and  relationships  of  which 
we  are  conscious  and  the  forces  which  determine  these. 
And  along  with  this  interpretation  there  tends  to  grow 
up  in  the  mind  of  each  some  plan  or  scheme  for  the  modi- 
fication or  complete  alteration  of  the  situation  in  the 
furtherance  of  his  special  ideals  or  interests. 

The  wageworker  is  no  exception  in  respect  to  all  this. 
His  hopes  and  fears  center  primarily  about  such  matters 
as  employment,  wages  and  hours,  conditions  of  work, 
modes  of  remuneration — in  short,  the  most  vital  con- 
cerns which  immediately  touch  his  present  and  future 
well-being — and  the  economic,  ethical,  and  juridical  con- 
ditions, standards,  and  forces  that  practically  determine 
these  matters;  and  his  mind  focuses  on  the  problem  of 
living  as  presented  in  these  terms.  In  his  attempt  to 
comprehend  and  solve  this  problem  he  also  develops  some 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  s; 

sort  of  social  viewpoint — an  interpretation  of  the  social 
situation  as  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  his  peculiar 
experiences  and  needs — and  a  set  of  beliefs  concerning 
what  should  and  can  be  done  to  better  the  situation, 
especially  as  it  bears  upon  the  conditions  of  living  which 
he  faces.^ 

The  scope  and  character  of  this  viewpoint  and  the 
mode  of  its  development  in  the  mind  of  the  worker 
vary  with  the  individual.  If  he  is  by  nature  and  train- 
ing thoughtful  and  independent,  he  may  work  out  his  own 
conclusions,  subject  of  course  to  the  unconscious  influence 
of  the  general  body  of  opinion  about  him,  and  his  inter- 
pretation and  solution  may  cover  the  widest  range,  in- 
cluding not  only  the  immediate  economic  conditions  and 
relationships  which  confront  him,  but  the  ethical  and 
legal  foundations  upon  which  these  rest.    One  indeed  f re- 

*The  statement  in  the  text  does  not  of  course  attempt  to 
carry  the  analysis  back  to  its  ultimate  basis.  To  quote  a  com- 
ment by  Professor  George  H.  Mead:  "This  process  is  funda- 
mentally a  process  of  the  coming  to  a  new  self-consciousness 
on  the  part  of  the  laborer  in  the  changing  industrial  conditions 
in  which  he  finds  himself.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  identify  this 
fundamental  impulse  with  the  occasions  which  give  it  expression. 
The  individual  laborer  can  become  conscious  of  himself  only 
in  so  far  as  he  realizes  himself  in  the  common  attitude  of  the 
group  over  against  the  employing  class  or  another  group  of 
workers,  and  the  whole  history  of  the  development  of  society 
has  shown  that  this  negative  attitude  must  precede  any  con- 
sciousness of  common  interests  which  bind  this  group  to  others 
in  society.  The  trade  union  is  then  one  step  in  the  process  of 
socializing  the  laborers  brought  about  under  the  modern  process 
of  industry,  and  goes  through  the  same  stages  through  which 
the  community  itself  has  passed  in  advancing  from  hostile 
groups  into  a  conscious  organization  of  diverse  but  interacting 
elements  of  society." 


58  TRADE  UNIONISM 

queiitly  encounters  workmen  who  have  thus  possessed 
themselves  of  a  complete  and  often  esoteric  social  philos- 
ophy. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  individual  worker  is  intel- 
lectually untrained  and  sluggish,  his  view  is  likely  to  be 
relatively  narrow,  concerned  mainly  with  his  own  im- 
mediate conditions  and  relationships,  and  taken  over 
bodily  from  the  current  opinion  of  his  associates.  In 
such  cases  he  is  likely  to  reflect  merely  the  opinions  of 
some  stronger  or  more  expansive  personality  who  has 
constituted  himself  a  leader.  But  whatever  its  range  or 
quality,  and  however  it  may  have  been  acquired,  each 
worker  possesses  and  is  guided  by  some  sort  of  social 
philosophy  rooted  in  his  peculiar  temperament  and  in  his 
immediate  experiences  and  relationships. 

It  is  evident  that  under  these  circumstances  workers 
similarly  situated  economically  and  socially,  closely  as- 
sociated and  not  too  divergent  in  temperament  and  train- 
ing, will  tend  to  develop  a  common  interpretation  of  the 
social  situation  and  a  common  solution  of  the  problem 
of  living.  This  may  come  about  gradually  and  spon- 
taneously, or  it  may  be  the  apparently  sudden  outcome  of 
some  crisis  in  the  lives  of  the  men  concerned.  It  may, 
for  example,  result  immediately  from  some  alteration  for 
the  worse  in  the  conditions  of  living,  or  an  interference 
with  what  are  considered  established  rights  and  modes  of 
action,  of  which  cases  in  point  would  be  wholesale  dis- 
charges from  employment  or  the  discharge  of  favorite 
individuals,  a  lowering  of  the  wage  rate,  the  requirement 
of  more  onerous  or  more  dangerous  conditions  of  work, 
a  sudden  rise  in  the  prices  of  necessities,  some  police 
action  or  legal  decision  which  touches  the  workers  on  the 
raw  with  respect  to  modes  of  action  or  their  assumed  dig 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  59 

nity  and  rights  as  men.  Or  this  crystallization  of  senti- 
ment may  come  about  as  the  result  of  the  appearance  from 
without  or  the  rise  from  within  the  group  of  a  purpose- 
ful agitator  and  leader — a  man  whose  personality  or 
position  commands  attention,  who  is  capable  of  putting 
into  general  form  the  discontents  of  the  individuals  and 
offering  a  positive  solution  of  their  difficulties.  But 
whatever  the  immediate  cause,  the  result  is  the  same.  A 
social  group  is  thus  constituted,  marked  off  by  a  more 
or  less  unified  and  well-developed  but  effective  viewpoint 
or  group  psychology. 

As  soon  as  this  state  of  affairs  has  been  reached  group 
action  is  a  natural  consequence.  Those  whose  interpre- 
tations of  the  situation  and  solutions  of  the  problem  are 
sufficiently  alike  to  make  cooperation  apparently  possible, 
spontaneously  or  under  purposeful  leadership  band  them- 
selves together  for  common  effort  and  mutual  assistance. 
They  come  together  thus,  not  primarily  to  establish  and 
vindicate  a  form  of  organization — the  organization  is 
merely  means  to  end — but  to  establish  and  maintain  cer- 
tain conditions  of  living — to  pvit  through  a  remedial  pro- 
gram based  on  their  common  interpretation  of  the  social 
situation  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  their  immediate 
conditions  and  needs. 

Thus  the  union  comes  into  existence.^    It  goes  back  in 

^  Unionism  then  is  not  a  thing  which  exists  only  among  wage- 
workers.  In  its  broadest  sense  it  may  be  as  pervasive  as  social 
grouping.  It  may  exist  wherever  in  society  there  is  a  group  of 
men  with  consciousness  of  common  needs  and  interests  apart 
from  the  rest  of  society.  What  distinguishes  trade  unionism 
from  other  forms  is  that  it  expresses  the  viewpoint  and  inter- 
pretation of  groups  of  wageworkers.  As  a  matter  of  fact  we 
have  no  lack  of  unions  of  employers,  unions  of  merchants, 
unions  of  farmers,  and  unions  of  professional  men.     The  cu- 


6o  TRADE  UNIONISM 

its  genesis  ultimately  to  the  common  needs  and  problems 
of  the  wageworkers ;  it  arises  immediately  out  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  common  or  group  character  of  those 
needs  and  problems ;  it  exists  for  common  action  looking 
to  the  betterment  of  the  living  conditions;  it  appears 
primarily  as  a  group  interpretation  of  the  social  situa- 
tion in  which  the  workers  find  themselves,  and  a  reme- 
dial program  in  the  form  of  aims,  policies,  and  methods; 
the  organization  and  the  specific  form  or  structure  which 
it  takes  are  merely  the  instruments  which  the  group 
adopts  for  propagating  its  viewpoint  and  putting  its  pro- 
gram into  effect.  In  short,  looking  at  it  from  the  stand- 
point of  motives  and  ends,  as  well  as  from  that  of  its 
character  as  a  social  problem,  the  heart  and  core  of  the 
thing — its  essential  aspect  or  expression — is  functional. 
Its  structural  or  organic  expression  is  secondary  and  de- 
pendent.* 

rious  thing  is  that  men  who  themselves  are  members  of  one 
sort  of  union,  in  so  many  cases  cannot  be  made  to  believe  that 
unions  of  another  sort  are  anything  but  unnatural  and  vicious 
products. 

*  In  practice  and  specifically,  the  genesis  of  unions  is,  of 
course,  a  matter  of  much  variation,  and  the  actual  order  of  events 
is  not  always  as  stated  in  the  text.  Spasmodic  action  often  pre- 
cedes organization,  and  organization  frequently  antedates  any 
general  or  rationalized  formulation  of  viewpoint,  interpretation, 
and  program.  Frequently  blind  and  spasmodic  revolt  against 
some  particular  grievance  or  condition  is  the  first  objective  step 
in  the  formation  of  a  union.  This  revolt  may  be  brought  about 
by  the  personal  influence  of  one  or  a  few  men,  and  the  crowd 
may  act  more  as  the  result  of  imitation  or  emotion  than  from 
clear  consciousness  of  a  common  viewpoint  and  problem;  after 
which  a  paid  organizer  appears  and  attempts  to  teach  the  work- 
ers or  a  select  number  the  union  viewpoint  and  program,  and  to 
effect  a  permanent  organization.    But  even  in  such  cases  some 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  6i 

If,  then,  functional  and  structural  types  of  trade  union- 
ism exist,  we  have  here  the  most  definite  indications  of 
what  must  be  their  nature  and  relationships.  Assuming 
their  existence,  the  functional  type  is  simply  a  specific 
case  of  group  psychology.  It  is  a  social  interpretation 
and  remedial  program  held  by  a  group  of  wage  workers. 
Obviously  there  may  be  as  many  of  these  functional 
types  as  there  are  groups  of  workers  with  vitally  different 
social  viewpoints  and  plans  of  action.  The  structural 
type,  on  the  other  hand,  is  simply  one  of  the  organic 
methods  by  means  of  which  the  functional  types  seek  to 
maintain  discipline  among  their  members  and  to  put  into 
effect  their  programs  of  action.  Evidently  there  may  be 
as  many  structural  types  as  there  are  distinct  organic 
modes  of  combination  effective  for  these  purposes.    The 

consciousness  of  common  needs  and  problems  has  preceded  ac- 
tion and  organization,  and  unless  the  conditions  are  present  for 
the  development  of  a  common  viewpoint,  interpretation,  and 
program,  and,  further,  unless  the  organization  is  adapted  to 
make  these  effective,  it  will  not  work.  Unless  these  elements 
are  present  some  organization  may  indeed  be  created,  but  it  will 
soon  disintegrate.  This  accounts,  indeed,  for  the  great  propor- 
tion of  unions  that  prove  altogether  ephemeral.  They  are  based 
on  the  temporary  existence  of  special  and  exceptional  circum- 
stances, or  are  the  work  of  one  or  two  men  whose  special  influ- 
ence has  for  the  time  created  the  semblance  of  a  group  psychol- 
ogy among  a  body  of  men  incapable  of  continuous  common 
thought  and  action.  Under  these  circumstances,  as  soon  as  the 
special  exigency  is  past,  or  the  special  leadership  withdrawn,  the 
group  is  bound  to  break  up.  In  other  words,  the  native  con- 
sciousness in  the  group  membership  of  actually  existing  common 
needs  and  problems  is  primal.  Without  it  and  without  adapta- 
tion to  it  no  organization  can  long  exist  and  function.  In  the 
most  vital  sense,  then,  the  statement  in  the  text  represents  the 
true  genesis  of  the  union  and  the  true  relation  of  its  functional 
and  structural  expressions. 


62  TRADE  UNIONISM 

functional  type  is  unionism  of  a  certain  species.  The 
structural  type  is  one  organic  form  in  which  it  may 
clothe  itself.  In  other  words,  the  structural  type  is  re- 
lated to  the  functional  type  somewhat  as  government  is 
related  to  the  nation.  It  is  altogether  a  subordinate  and 
dependent  manifestation. 

But  do  such  types  exist?  So  far  as  concerns  struc- 
tural types,  this  has  been  generally  conceded.  What  can 
we  say,  then,  in  regard  to  the  functional  aspect  of  the 
case?  Let  us  carry  the  analysis  a  step  farther.  It  is 
evident  that,  once  the  viewpoint  stated  above  is  com- 
prehended and  accepted,  we  should  look  for  distinct  and 
conflicting  varieties  of  unionism,  functionally  speaking. 
We  should  expect  these  to  appear  wherever  and  when- 
ever there  exist  groups  of  workers  with  well-defined  and 
conflicting  social  viewpoints.  Moreover,  we  should  ex- 
pect to  find  them  existing  not  only  in  succession  but  con- 
currently, and  not  only  in  different  industries  but  among 
the  workers  in  the  same  industry  and  even  in  the  same 
craft.  For  as  soon  as  we  concede  that  the  union  is  in 
essence  an  expression  of  group  psychology  we  realize  that 
it  will  get  its  specific  character  not  merely  from  environ- 
mental conditions  but  from  these  in  conjunction  with  the 
temperamental  characteristics  of  the  workers  concerned, 
and  that  consequently  union  variants  are  likely  to  appear 
with  a  variation  in  either  of  these  factors.  In  short,  we 
should  expect  to  find  concurrent  functional  variation  and 
conflict  to  be  among  the  chief  features  of  contemporary 
unionism  in  a  country  like  our  own,  with  its  diversity  of 
environmental  conditions  and  its  richness  of  racial  and 
temperamental  contrasts. 

And  the  facts  amply  confirm  the  deduction :  not  only 
does  the  student  of  American  unionism  encounter  differ- 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  63 

ent  union  groups  in  different  industries  with  widely  vary- 
ing viewpoints  and  interpretations,  but  different  unions 
with  varying  aims,  policies,  and  methods  contending  for 
the  domination  of  the  same  industry.  And  nothing  is 
more  characteristic  of  the  situation  than  the  descent  of 
this  form  of  conflict  into  the  particular  union  where  rival 
groups  or  factions  struggle  for  the  control  of  the  or- 
ganization in  the  interests  of  conflicting  interpretations 
and  programs.  The  bitterness  of  these  contests  and  their 
continuance  over  long  periods  and  under  different  sets 
of  leaders  leave  no  doubt  that  they  spring,  in  part  at 
least,  from  the  existence  of  irreconcilable  viewpoints.'* 

5  As  illustrations  of  the  statement  in  the  text  the  following 
specific  cases  of  union  conflict  based  mainly  on  differences  of 
viewpoint  and  program  may  be  cited :  In  the  eighties  and  early 
nineties  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  claiming  to  repre- 
sent in  general  what  we  have  called  business  unionism,  was  en- 
gaged in  a  struggle  for  supremacy  with  the  Knights  of  Labor, 
the  assumed  proponent  of  idealistic  uplift  unionism,  and  since 
1905  the  American  Federation  has  had  to  encounter  the  bitter 
opposition  of  the  quasi  anarchistic  Industrial  Workers  of  the 
World.  During  the  most  of  this  time  the  control  of  the  Fed- 
eration has  been  more  or  less  seriously  threatened  by  the  social- 
istic unionists  working  within  the  organization.  The  L  W.  W. 
has  been  in  a  chronic  state  of  internal  conflict  since  its  estab- 
lishment in  1905.  In  1908  it  split  into  two  irreconcilable  fac- 
tions resulting  in  the  formation  of  a  socialistic  I.  W.  W.  (the 
Detroit  I.  W.  W.)  which  has  since  maintained  a  separate  exist- 
ence. At  the  present  moment  the  older  organization  is  in  most 
serious  straits  due  to  internal  dissensions.  Serious  contests  oyer 
general  policy  are  not  infrequent  in  state  and  city  central  units 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor.  A  notable  example  is 
the  case  of  the  Chicago  Federation  of  Labor,  the  control  of 
which  some  years  since  was  threatened  by  the  violent  efforts 
and  the  drastic  measures  of  a  predatory  group  ruled  by  "Skinny" 
Madden,  and  which  has  been  almost  constantly  harassed  by  the 


64  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Conflicting  functional  variants  then  certainly  do  exist 
in  the  union  complex.  But  are  these  variants  union  types 
in  the  sense  that  they  preclude  the  assumption  of  a  single 
consistent  unionism  at  bottom  ?  This  is  the  question  for 
practical  proof.  In  order  to  clear  the  ground  for  direct 
consideration  of  this  question,  one  more  point  in  the 
general  interpretation  of  unionism  demands  considera- 
tion. 

If  the  validity  of  the  preceding  analysis  be  conceded, 
it  is  evident  that  the  orthodox  causal  and  historical  in- 
terpretation of  unionism  must  be  abandoned  or  thor- 
oughly revised.  It  has  been  the  habit  of  students  to 
look  upon  trade  unionism  as  fundamentally  an  econom- 
ic manifestation  and  to  interpret  it  almost  exclusively, 
or  at  least  primarily,  in  terms  of  industrial  or  economic 
factors.  Thus  one  school  would  explain  unionism  in 
terms  of  the  development  of  the  process  of  production 
in  its  narrow  sense,  making  of  it  a  succession  of  organic 
adaptations  to  the  conditions  and  needs  of  the  workers 
produced  immediately  by  the  successive  types  or  units 
of  capitalistic  enterprise,  e.g.,  the  small  craft  unit,  the 
industrial  unit,  and  the  enlarged  industrial  unit  or  trust. 

efforts  of  the  socialistic  unionists  to  force  upon  it  their  view- 
point and  policies.  Contests  within  national  and  local  unions 
between  rival  factions  representing  conflicting  union  varieties 
find  well-known  recent  examples  in  the  cases  of  the  United  Mine 
Workers,  the  Electrical  Workers,  the  Association  of  Machinists, 
the  Painters,  Decorators,  and  Paperhangers,  the  Bakery  and 
Confectionery  Workers,  the  Carpenters  and  Joiners — to  name 
only  a  few  of  many.  Contests  between  national  unions  for  con- 
trol of  the  trade  or  industry  find  current  examples  in  the  strug- 
gle between  the  Brotherhood  of  Railroad  Trainmen  and  the 
Switchmen's  Union  of  North  America,  and  between  the  two 
unions  in  the  boot  and  shoemaking  industry. 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  '65 

Unionism  tlius  appears  ultimately  as  the  organic  corol- 
lary of  the  form  of  the  tool  or  machine.  Another  school 
insists  that  unionism  is  to  be  explained  primarily  in 
terms  of  the  development  of  markets  and  the  character 
and  scope  of  market  competition,  endeavoring  to  show 
that  the  different  forms  of  unionism  correspond  natur- 
ally to  the  conditions  existing  in  conjunction  with  the 
customs  market,  the  retail  competitive  market,  and  the 
wholesale  market.  Here  transportation  is  perhaps  the 
most  potent  underlying  determinant.  It  is  not  denied 
that  other  factors  have  a  formative  influence,  especially, 
for  example,  the  presence  or  absence  of  free  land,  the 
political  ideals  and  situation,  and  the  state  of  public  edu- 
cation. But  these  factors  are  looked  upon  as  modifiers. 
Environment  is  practically  the  sole,  and  economic  en- 
vironment the  chief,  formative  force,  and  unionism  is 
again  regarded  as  a  series  of  successive  adaptations  of 
one  and  the  same  thing  to  the  changing  environmental 
conditions. 

These  attempts  at  explanation  simply  or  mainly  in 
industrial  or  economic  terms  result  largely  from  the 
habit  of  regarding  unionism  primarily  as  an  organic 
phenomenon  and  thus  centering  the  attention  on  struc- 
tural forms  and  changes,  and  are  the  chief  cause  for  fail- 
ure to  recognize  the  possible  nonunitary  character  of 
unionism.  For  as  soon  as  we  discard  the  older  mode  of 
approach  and  look  at  unionism  as  primarily  functional 
in  character,  the  appearance  of  orderly  succession  van- 
ishes, and  the  simple  modes  of  interpretation  described 
above  are  seen  to  be  altogether  inadequate  to  account  for 
the  facts.  We  have  then  to  explain  chiefly  the  existence 
of  contradictory  group  interpretations  and  programs 
which  succeed  each  other  apparently  in  no  or^er  acpount- 


66  TRADE  UNIONISM 

able  for  by  changes  in  the  economic  situation,  and  which 
appear,  as  we  have  pointed  out,  not  only  consecutively 
in  conjunction  with  different  systems  of  production  and 
marketing,  but  concurrently,  and  not  merely  in  the  same 
general  industrial  and  social  milieu,  but  among  workers 
in  the  same  trade  and  even  in  the  same  union. 

Evidently  functional  variations  thus  existing  and  per- 
sisting cannot  be  explained  in  economic  or  even  in  en- 
vironmental terms  alone.  They  can  be  accounted  for 
only  on  the  supposition  that  primary  forces  besides  the 
industrial  and  environmental  are  vitally  responsible  for 
their  genesis  and  being.  In  short,  an  interpretation  of 
unionism,  not  in  monistic,  but  in  dualistic  or  pluralistic 
terms  is  required.  ' 

What  then  conceivably  are  these  relatively  permanent, 
non-industrial  factors  which  enter  into  the  determina- 
tion of  the  primary  or  functional  character  of  unionism? 
Since  these  diverse  viewpoints  and  interpretations  which 
make  up  unionism  are  obviously  specific  cases  of  group  or 
social  psychology,  we  have  merely  to  inquire  what  are  the 
determining  factors  of  the  psychology  of  social  groups. 
This  query  the  social  psychologist  stands  ready  to  answer 
with  considerable  assurance.  He  assures  us  that  one  of 
these  factors  is  environment — not  economic  environment 
merely,  but  political,  social,  and  traditional  as  well,  in  the 
sense  of  the  whole  body  of  transmitted  sentiments,  ideas, 
and  precepts — moral,  religious,  and  customary.  But  he 
assures  us  also  that  over  against  environment  as  thus 
broadly  interpreted  is  another  factor,  perhaps  equally 
potent  and  certainly  more  permanent.  This  is  the  sub- 
jective factor.  It  includes  temperament  and  aptitudes, 
both  personal  and  racial,  which  show  themselves  as  be- 
tween different  races  and  individuals  in  relatively  per- 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  ^t 

manent  and  conflicting  feelings,  ideals,  and  attitudes.  It 
is  these  temperamental  differences  plus  environmental  in- 
fluences that  at  any  moment  cause  individuals  to  differ  in 
respect  to  what  is  good  and  bad,  right  and  wrong,  just 
and  unjust;  which  mold  and  color  their  social  interpre- 
tations, and  thus,  through  the  primal  forces  of  associa- 
tion, bring  about  psychological  groups  with  diverse  and 
conflicting  viewpoints  and  programs  of  action.®  We 
may  then  reasonably  conclude  that  the  existence  of  con- 
current and  conflicting  functional  variants  is  to  be  ex- 
plained as  .the  outcome  of  different  combinations  of  all 
these  relatively  permanent  forces  that  affect  the  psy- 
chology of  group  membership,  both  environmental  and 
subjective  or  temperamental,  and  since  the  functional 
aspect  of  unionism  is  its  primary  and  essential  expres- 
sion it  also  is  to  be  explained  causally  and  historically  in 
the  same  terms.'^ 

With  this  general  interpretation  of  unionism  in  hand 
we  are  now  in  a  position  to  comprehend  the  nature  of 
the  problem  involved  in  the  assumption  that  unionism  is 
at  bottom  nonunitary,  and  to  state  clearly  and  specifically 
the  character  and  methods  of  proof  which  are  required 
to  validate  this  assumption.  The  problem  is  one  which 
evidently  concerns  primarily  the  existence,  and  character 
of  functional  union  types.     We  shall  therefore  consider 

^  See  C.  H.  Cooley,  Social  Organization;  W.  G.  Sumner,  Folk- 
ways; W.  I.  Thomas,  "Race  Psychology,"  American  Journal  of 
Sociology,  XVII,  72S-77S ',  G-  Tarde,  The  Laws  of  Imitation. 

^  This  insistence  on  a  dualistic  interpretation  of  unionism  is 
not  necessarily  out  of  harmony  with  a  belief  in  philosophical 
monism  or  even  with  adherence  to  the  "economic  interpretation 
of  history."  It  implies  nothing  in  regard  to  the  ultimate  deter- 
minants of  racial  and  temperamental  differences.  It  takes  them 
simply  as  fixed  data  for  the  present  and  recent  situation. 


68  TRADE  UNIONISM 

this  aspect  of  the  matter  first,  postponing  for  the  present 
the  discussion  of  structural  types  and  their  relation  to 
the  main  issue. 

We  have  seen  that  functional  union  variants  do  exist. 
What  then  must  be  proved  with  respect  to  them  in  order 
to  establish  the  main  contention?  It  would  follow  from 
all  that  has  been  said  that  the  real  tests  of  the  validity  of 
these  variants  as  types  are  concurrent  existence  as  rival 
forms  of  unionism  and  relative  permanence  or  stability 
as  such.  Only  in  so  far  as  they  stand  these  tests  can  we 
be  sure  that  they  are  more  than  successive  adaptations 
of  one  and  the  same  unionism  to  changing  environment, 
or  more  than  temporary  and  accidental  variations  from 
a  single  union  norm;  and  only  in  so  far  can  we  assert 
that  unionism  is  not  after  all  an  essentially  consistent 
though  developing  whole. 

But  the  question  at  once  arises :  Just  what  is  implied 
specifically  in  the  terms  "rival  forms  or  expressions"  and 
"relative  permanence  or  stability"?  In  order  to  con- 
stitute a  type  must  there  be  a  perfectly  defined  and  com- 
pletely isolated  union  variant,  exactly  objectified  in  a  for- 
mal organization  which  has  existed  from  the  initial  gene- 
sis of  unionism,  or  will  less  rigid  requirements  suffice? 

Certainly  it  must  be  shown  that  these  functional  vari- 
ants exist  at  the  same  time  among  the  wageworkers  as 
consciously  formulated  and  essentially  conflicting  social 
interpretations  with  special  regard  to  the  needs  and  prob- 
lems of  the  workers  and  the  best  methods  of  arriving  at 
their  solution;  and  that  these  conflicting  interpretations, 
once  established,  persist  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  do 
not  tend  to  revert  or  to  develop  into  some  one  of  the  in- 
terpretations or  into  a  single  common  interpretation. 

On  the  other  hand,  at  least  three  apparent  qualifications 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  69 

of  these  conditions  are  possible  without  destroying  the 
practical  reality  and  significance  of  distinct  functional 
types.  In  the  first  place,  no  specific  degree  of  scope  and 
generality  with  respect  to  the  group  interpretation  and 
program  is  essential.  These  may  be  exceedingly  narrow, 
concerned  merely  with  the  immediate  economic  condi- 
tions, relationships,  and  standards  of  living  of  the  work- 
ers involved ;  that  is,  they  may  comprehend  simply  a  set 
of  more  or  less  coordinated  assumptions  in  regard  to  the 
rights  of  the  men  with  respect  to  wages,  hours,  and  con- 
ditions of  employment,  the  mode  of  determining  these, 
and  the  methods  to  be  used  in  securing  reasonable  terms 
with  the  employer  and  enforcing  them.  Or  the  group 
interpretation  may  constitute  a  complete,  definite,  and 
rationalized  social  philosophy,  and  the  program  may  cover 
the  whole  field  of  economic,  political,  ethical,  juridical, 
and  social  conditions  and  relationships  of  the  workers. 
The  only  essential  point  is  that  the  viewpoint  and  pro- 
gram, whatever  their  scope  and  character,  shall  command 
the  adherence  of  the  membership  of  the  group  so  as  to 
constitute  an  effective  motive  and  guide  to  group  action. 
If  this  condition  is  met  the  type  exists.  The  interpreta- 
tion may  be  what  it  will ;  the  question  is :  Does  it  work  as 
a  unifying  and  dynamic  group  force? 

It  is  equally  true,  secondly  and  thirdly,  that  these  func- 
tional types  can  exist,  and  can  in  so  far  show  the  essential 
diversity  and  manifold  character  of  unionism  indepen- 
dent of  any  structural  qualifications  whatever  and  apart 
from  the  existence  of  actual  union  programs  conforming 
exactly  to  them.  For  the  functional  type,  it  must  not 
be  forgotten,  is  a  group  viewpoint  or  interpretation  and, 
provided  it  exists,  persists,  and  its  adherents  strive  to 
secure  for  it  practical  effectiveness  and  the  structural 


70  TRADE  UNIONISM 

means  appropriate  thereto,  it  is  a  union  type,  regardless 
of  the  structural  form  through  which  or  with  which  it 
may  be  obliged  to  work,  and  regardless  of  the  ability  of 
its  advocates  to  secure  its  exclusive  objectification  in  the 
programs  of  any  particular  organizations.^  It  is  not 
necessary,  even,  that  different  functional  types  should 
always  find  expression  in  different  and  conflicting  union 
organizations.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  possible,  and  in- 
deed it  often  happens,  that  the  conflict  between  the  func- 
tional types  goes  on  within  one  and  the  same  union  or- 
ganization, taking  the  form  of  a  struggle  for  control 
between  two  or  more  factions  holding  to  vitally  different 
social  viewpoints  and  interpretations.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  this  internal  conflict  is  a  characteristic  feature  of 
unions,  and  at  any  moment  there  is  almost  always  some 
factional  compromise  and  some  practical  admixture  of 
functional  type  programs.  Official  union  programs, 
therefore,  rarely  exist  perfectly  true  to  type.  This  is  one 
reason  why  the  multiple-type  character  of  unionism  has 
been  generally  overlooked.  But  this  admixture  in  prac- 
tice no  more  negates  the  fact  and  significance  of  union 
types  than  does  the  practical  absence  of  pure  democracy, 
unmixed  oligarchy,  or  absolute  despotism  negate  the 
varied  type  and  character  of  government,  nor  does  the 
fact  that  most  capitalistic  incomes  are  mixed  negate  or 

*A  good  illustration  of  this  statement  is  furnished  by  the 
American  Syndicalist  League.  No  one  prepared  to  admit  the 
existence  of  functional  types  at  all  would  deny  a  place  among 
them  to  revolutionary  syndicalism.  Yet  it  is  not  the  primary 
aim  of  the  Syndicalist  League  to  form  separate  union  organiza- 
tions with  correct  syndicalist  programs,  but  gradually  to  trans- 
form American  unionism  by  the  process  of  spiritual  penetration. 
It  advises  all  syndicalists  to  join  the  unions  of  their  trade  and 
to  agitate  within  the  organization. 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  71 

destroy  the  significance  of  the  truth  that  social  income, 
aside  from  that  which  goes  to  wages,  is  divided  into  the 
essentially  diverse  income  types — profits,  interest,  and 
rent — and  that  actual  distribution  is  to  be  so  far  inter- 
preted in  terms  of  these  types  and  their  fundamental 
determinants.^ 

If  there  is  any  doubt  in  regard  to  the  aptness  of  these 
analogies,  let  us  put  the  case  in  the  worst  possible  light 
for  our  contention,  and  then  deal  with  it  on  its  own 
merits.  We  have  from  the  first  insisted  that  unionism 
is  what  it  is,  and  must  be  interpreted  as  we  find  it.  But 
if  there  is  no  exact  correlation  between  functional  and 
structural  types,  and  if  actual  union  programs  rarely 
occur  type  pure,  how  then  can  these  functional  types  be 
the  effective  guides  to  union  action  or  true  clues  to  the 
interpretation  of  actual  unionism?    The  answer  is  to  be 

» Neither  is  the'  existence  and  significance  of  union  types 
negated  by  the  fact  that  in  times  of  serious  crises  unionists  and 
unions  of  one  type  are  likely  to  rally  temporarily  to  the  support 
of  those  of  another,  nor  by  the  further  fact  that  within  unions 
bodies  of  men  are  found  who  act  now  with  one  and  now  with 
another  faction.  The  first  case  finds  its  analogy  in  war  between 
nations,  when  for  the  time  being  partisans  of  all  types  of  gov- 
ernment unite  against  foreign  aggression.  The  second  case 
illustrates  the  force  of  personality  and  imitation  in  the  deter- 
mination of  social  grouping.  In  the  unions  there  are  a  few 
men  of  strong  personality  and  decided  opinions.  There  are  more 
of  an  imitative  disposition  who  get  their  opinions  from  others- 
The  former  in  their  positive  interpretations  and  programs  repre- 
sent and  maintain  the  distinct  and  conflicting  union  types.  The 
latter  are  followers  who  sometimes  shift  in  their  allegiance  from 
leader  to  leader  and  thus  from  type  to  type,  with  changes  in 
associations  and  conditions.  This  fact  does  not  negate  the 
existence  of  the  types,  but  throws  light  rather  on  the  conditions 
which  determine  the  outcome  of  contests  between  factions  repre- 
senting types. 


y2  TRADE  UNIONISM 

found  in  the  pragmatic  and  dynamic  character  of  union^ 
ism.  It  is  not  a  made-to-order  and  finished  product,  but 
is  in  a  constant  state  of  flux  and  development.  For  the 
most  part  it  changes,  not  by  the  process  of  creations 
de  novo,  but  by  the  slow  transformation  of  existing  pro- 
grams and  structure.  Unionism  as  it  is,  then,  is  not  a  set 
of  fixed  forms  and  programs,  but  is  a  developing  process, 
and  it  is  just  this  process  of  change  and  transition  that 
the  student  must  chiefly  consider  if  he  is  to  understand 
and  interpret  the  phenomenon. 

But  w^hat  is  the  real  nature  of  this  process  of  change? 
No  one  M^ho  has  made  a  careful  study  of  unionism  can 
doubt  that  it  is  a  matter  of  practical  adaptation  to  the 
existing  relative  strength  or  of  continuous  readjustment 
to  the  shifting  of  balance  of  power  between  contending 
groups  and  factions.  New  conditions  arise,  creating  new 
problems  which  must  be  faced  and  solved.  Each  group 
has  its  solution  based  on  its  own  general  viewpoint  and 
interpretation.  The  actual  resultant  in  terms  of  the 
union  program  and  structure  will  reflect  the  relative 
power  of  the  groups.  Or  new  members  are  admitted, 
and,  the  personnel  having  changed,  a  new  balance  of 
power  between  factions  is  established.  Soon  this  new 
balance  will  be  reflected  in  the  official  policies,  methods, 
attitudes,  and  perhaps  structural  features,  of  the  union. 
Thus,  while  the  types  persist,  the  actual  union  program 
and  methods  change  and  develop.  It  is  then  evidently  in 
terms  of  the  interpretations  and  programs  of  these  con- 
flicting groups,  i.e.,  in  terms  of  the  types  and  their  causes, 
that  we  are  to  find  the  clues  to  the  interpretation  of 
unionism  as  it  actually  exists  and  is  becoming. 

And  just  because  unionists  are  in  the  main  pragmatic 
in  their  outlook  we  should  not  expect,  except  rarely,  to 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  73 

find  actual  union  programs  and  union  structures  existing 
type  pure.  Nor  should  we  ordinarily  expect  any  definite 
correlation  in  practice  between  functional  and  structural 
types.  Doubtless  such  a  correlation  naturally  exists  to  a 
considerable  extent,  certain  structural  arrangements  be- 
ing naturally  adapted  to  the  carrying  out  of  certain  group 
programs.  But  ordinarily  while  there  is  hope  of  a  grad- 
ual transformation  toward  the  desired  type  its  adherents 
will  remain  in  the  union.  It  is  only  when  one  faction 
gives  up  hope  of  working  its  will  from  within  that  it 
will  withdraw  and  set  up  a  new  organization,  and  it  is 
only,  therefore,  under  such  circumstances  that  we  ordi- 
narily find  an  exact  correspondence  between  the  actual 
union  programs  and  structures  and  the  pure  types.  We 
may  safely  conclude,  then,  that  the  absence  of  exact  cor- 
relation between  structural  and  functional  types  in  prac- 
tice, and  between  the  latter  and  actual  union  programs, 
does  not  militate  against  the  reality  of  distinct  and  per- 
sisting functional  types  and  their  practical  significance. 

Turning  now  to  the  matter  of  structural  types,  it  is 
evident  that  the  problem  before  us  assumes  a  very  differ- 
ent and  much  less  important  aspect.  Distinct  structural 
types  do  exist,  as  is  generally  admitted,  but  neither  are 
they  always  rival  forms  nor  is  there  always  absence 
among  them  of  developmental  mutability.  It  does  seem 
to  be  rather  characteristic  of  the  existence  of  these  types 
that  their  several  advocates  should  be  in  actual  conflict 
in  the  endeavor  to  displace  one  by  another;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  are  often  found  in  quite  harmonious  and 
supplemental  relationship  In  the  same  organic  group, 
each  appearing  to  meet  a  different  practical  need.  A 
well-recognized  case  in  point  is  the  existence  and  rela- 
tionship within  the  general  organization  of  the  American 


74  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Federation  of  Labor  of  craft  and  trades  unions.  Nor  do 
these  distinct  structural  types  always  appear  to  be  quite 
independent  in  their  genesis.  This  happens  in  some  cases, 
but  there  seem  to  be  clear  cases  of  developmental  transi- 
tion. Thus  the  compound  craft  union  is  sometimes  a* 
transformation  of  the  craft  union  by  the  simple  process 
of  combination,  and  the  industrial  imion  seems  often  to 
be  the  outcome  of  a  simple  enlargement  of  the  elements 
in  the  compound  craft  union. 

If,  then,  structural  types  stood  in  the  same  relation- 
ship to  our  problem  as  functional  types,  and  if,  there- 
fore, in  order  to  establish  the  manifold  character  of 
unionism  it  were  necessary  to  apply  the  same  criteria  to 
them  with  the  same  degree  of  stringency,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  case  could  not  be  maintained.  Here  we 
doubtless  find  the  chief  explanation  for  the  fact  that 
students  have  yielded  so  long  and  so  generally  to  the 
popular  assumption  that  unionism  is  at  bottom  one  and 
the  same  thing,  that  union  variants  are  but  adaptations 
of  a  single  norm  to  changing  environment,  or  at  most 
temporary  and  accidental  aberrations  from  it.^°  This  is 
the  conviction  with  which  the  student  of  unionism  would 
naturally,  and  indeed  almost  inevitably,  be  impressed  if 
he  entered  upon  the  study  primarily  from  the  structural 
standpoint,  and  placed  his  emphasis  upon  structural 
forms  and  relationships.  He  would  then  see  unionism  be- 
ginning in  the  local  craft  organization  as  a  response  to 
the  conditions  created  by  the  primitive  type  of  capitalistic 
enterprise  or  to  its  corresponding  market  structure,  and 
developing  by  a  gradual  transformation  through  larger 

*°  The  popular  assumption  seems  to  be  in  itself  partly  a  mat- 
ter of  blind  partisanship,  partly  a  matter  of  tactical  advantage, 
and  partly  a  belief  in  things  hoped  for. 


THE  ESSENCE  OF  UNIONISM  75 

units  to  more  complex  structural  arrangements  to  meet 
conditions  imposed  primarily  by  economic  evolution. 
And  so  long  as  he  looked  at  the  union  primarily  as  a 
structural  entity,  and  thought  of  aims,  policies,  and  activi- 
ties as  functions  or  means  of  the  organic  thing,  he  could 
adopt  no  other  than  the  unitary  or  normalistic  assump- 
tion. 

If,  however,  the  primary  and  essential  union  expres- 
sion is  functional,  and  if  it  is  further  true  that  functional 
variations  may  exist  regardless  of  any  structural  quali- 
fications whatever — the  same  functional  variant  making 
use  of  different  structural  forms  without  losing  its  iden- 
tity or  permanency,  and,  contrariwise,  distinct  and  con- 
tradictory functional  variants  working  through  the  same 
structural  arrangements — it  is  evident  that  this  appear- 
ance of  things  would  be  far  from  conclusive  of  the  real 
character  of  unionism.  Doubtless  entire  absence  of  dis- 
tinct structural  types  would  render  impossible  positive 
proof  of  the  nonunitary  character  of  unionism,  but  it  is 
evident  that  the  tests  which  need  be  applied  to  prove  their 
existence  in  harmony  with  this  hypothesis  are  not  the 
same  as  in  the  case  of  the  functional  types.  Absolute 
rivalry  is  not  essential.  It  is  sufficient  if  the  modes  of 
organization  be  vitally  different  in  principle.  In  short, 
the  tests  of  distinct  structural  types  demanded  by  our 
hypothesis  seem  to  be  merely  the  contemporary  and  his- 
torical presence  in  the  union  complex  of  distinct  and 
alternative  forms  of  organization. 

To  recapitulate,  then,  briefly  in  regard  to  the  nature  of 
the  problem  involved  in  the  assumption  that  unionism  is 
nonunitary  in  character :  It  has  been  seen  that  this  as- 
sumption is  one  which  rests  almost  exclusively  on  the 
existence   and   persistence   of    functional   union   types. 


'je  TRADE  UNIONISM 

In  order  to  prove  the  truth  of  the  assump- 
tion beyond  reasonable  doubt,  it  must  be  shown  that 
these  functional  types  exist  concurrently  as  conflicting 
or  rival  social  interpretations  and  remedial  programs, 
held  and  advocated  by  different  groups  of  wageworkers ; 
it  must  be  shown  that,  once  established,  these  rival  view- 
points persist  and  exhibit  no  tendency  as  such  to  revert 
to  a  single  or  common  viewpoint ;  but  it  is  not  necessary 
that  they  should  be  shown  to  attain  any  specific  degree 
of  scope  or  generality  beyond  what  is  necessary  to  com- 
mand group  adherence  and  effectively  to  guide  group 
action,  that  they  should  be  necessarily  associated  with 
any  particular  organic  forms  or  structural  types,  that 
each  should  find  practical  expression  exclusively  in  a  dif- 
ferent organization,  or,  finally,  that  the  program  of  any 
particular  organization  or  group  of  organizations  should 
at  any  moment  conform  exactly  to  any  one  of  them.  In 
the  matter  of  structure  it  is  necessary  to  show  merely  the 
existence  of  distinct  and  alternative  forms  of  organiza- 
tion. 

Such  being  the  problem,  what  is  the  process  of  proof 
required  ?  Evidently  we  have  here  a  matter  which  must 
be  dealt  with  historically.  We  must  first  determine  which 
of  these  distinct  union  variants  have  had  more  than  an 
ephemeral  existence.  So  far  as  structural  forms  are  con- 
cerned, this  should  be  sufficient.  In  regard  to  those 
functional  variants  that  have  persisted,  it  must  be  proved 
that  they  have  had  their  genesis  in  different  combinations 
of  relatively  permanent  factors  both  environmental  and 
temperamental. 

To  be  exhaustive,  the  proof  doubtless  should  be  both 
positive  and  negative.     Negatively  it  should  be  estab- 


THE  ESSENCE  OE  UNIONISM  yy 

lished  that  where  no  concurrent  and  conflicting  functional 
variants  exist  the  environment  of  the  workers  entering 
into  combination  is  essentially  uniform  and  that  the  work- 
ers themselves,  racially,  temperamentally,  and  tradition- 
ally, are  essentially  homogeneous.  Positively  it  should 
be  proved  that  existing  and  historically  concurrent  con- 
flicting variants  owe  their  origin  and  persistence  to  vitally 
diverse  combinations  of  environmental  and  subjective 
factors  operating  in  connection  with  the  groups  con- 
cerned. 

Perfectly  complete  and  satisfactory  proof  of  our  fun- 
damental hypothesis  respecting  the  general  character  of 
unionism  and  union  types  in  the  United  States  would 
then  demand  the  most  searching  study  of  our  union  his- 
tory with  special  reference  to  the  economic,  political, 
traditional,  and  temperamental  factors  involved.  It  is 
not  possible  to  secure  complete  proof  in  this  wise,  owing 
to  the  paucity  of  well-authenticated  historical  material. 
We  shall,  however,  attempt  to  assemble  enough  evidence 
of  this  character  for  the  practical  testing  of  our  thesis 
and  for  significant  generalizations  in  regard  to  the  gen- 
eral character  of  union  development  in  the  United  States. 


CHAPTER  IV 

A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW^ 

Unionism  first  appeared  in  this  country  about  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth centuries,^  in  the  form  of  local  craft  unions, 
mainly  among  the  printers,  cordwainers,  bakers,  ship- 
wrights and  carpenters.  These  unions  did  not  appear 
earlier  in  this  country  because  not  until  about  this  time 
was  there  any  well-defined  separation  of  the  employing 
and  laboring  functions,  and  therefore,  only  then  were 
there  the  beginnings  of  distinct  groups  of  employers  and 

1  The  historical  study  of  unionism  is  valuable  just  in  propor- 
tion as  it  gives  insight  into  the  real  character  and  causes  of 
unionism.  The  facts  as  facts  mean  nothing,  and  the  knowing 
of  them  means  nothing  except  as  they  help  toward  knowing  what 
unionism  is  and  why  it  is.  Throughout  the  discussion,  therefore, 
this  should  be  kept  constantly  in  mind.  As  a  general  hint  in 
this  connection,  we  should  consider  carefully  the  guestion:  Is 
there  any  such  thing  as  unionism,  i.  e.,  unionism  as  a  whole, 
unionism  as  such?  On  the  answer  to  this  question  will  depend 
not  only  the  nature  of  one's  generalizations  but  one's  whole  atti- 
tude toward  union  phenomena  and  the  union  problem.  (See 
Notes  on  Method,  p.  376.) 

2  There  had  been  labor  organizations  in  America  before  this, 
as  far  back  as  the  seventeenth  century.  These  organizations, 
however,  were  not  trade  unions,  but  craft  guilds  of  workmen 
who  combined  in  themselves  the  functions  of  laborer,  master 
and  merchant.  They  were  organized  to  license,  or  otherwise 
limit  the  number  of  legal  craftsmen,  to  regulate  the  quality  of 
work,  and  to  maintain  customary  prices. 

78 


A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW  79 

wa.^4  earners.  Nor  did  they  appear  as  the  result  of  any 
theory  of  unionism  or  of  any  social  theory.  Indeed,  the 
prevalent  political  and  social  theory  of  the  time — the 
eighteenth  century  theory  of  natural  order  and  natural 
law — which  held  the  notions  of  individual  equality, 
harmony  of  interest,  and  free  competition  for  absolute 
truths,  was  directly  opposed  to  labor  combination.  The 
prime  cause  of  the  appearance  of  these  unions  seems  to 
have  been  that  as  soon  as  a  distinct  differentiation  be- 
tween employers  and  workers  began  to  appear,  the  em- 
ployers took  advantage  of  the  breaking  down  of  the  old 
customary  and  legal  trade  and  labor  regulations,  espe- 
cially of  apprenticeship  regulations,  to  utilize  the  compe- 
tition of  "illegal"  men  in  attempts  to  lower  wages  and 
increase  the  hours  of  labor.  In  short,  at  the  earliest  ap- 
pearance of  the  employing  group  and  relatively  free  com- 
petition, there  began  a  struggle  between  the  employers  and 
the  wageworkers  which  forced  the  latter  to  combine. 

The  functions  of  these  unions  were  not  definitely 
formulated  in  advance,  but  grew  naturally  out  of  the 
conditions  and  problems  which  they  had  to  face.  Since 
the  efforts  of  the  employers  were  directed  to  lowering 
wages  and  increasing  hours,  the  workers  attempted  the 
regulation  of  these  through  a  union  or  a  combined  group. 
Since  the  employers  were  successful,  however,  because 
of  the  breakdown  of  apprenticeship  and  the  influx  of 
"illegal"  men,  the  unions  attempted  the  defense  of  ap- 
prenticeship and  the  exclusion  of  those  who  had  not 
passed  through  it,  i.e.,  the  closed  shop.  They  attempted 
to  enforce  their  demand  by  strikes.  Moreover,  since  the 
employers  proceeded  against  them  for  conspiring,  and 
since  under  the  competitive  regime  they  were  thrown 
upon  their  own  resources,  they  were  obliged  to  add  -o^^ 


8o  TRADE  UNIONISM 

their  functions  legal  defense  and  mutual  insurance,  sick 
and  funeral. 

Why  did  the  first  unions  take  the  craft  form,  the  local 
organization  of  a  particular  craft?  It  was  because  of 
the  nature  of  the  principal  problem  which  confronted 
the  workers,  the  nature  of  the  functions  they  were  there- 
fore called  on  to  perform,  and  the  form  of  the  business 
unit  and  extent  of  the  market.  That  is,  the  problem  was 
to  prevent  the  employers  from  lowering  wages  and  in- 
creasing hours  by  taking  advantage  of  the  labor  competi- 
tion of  "illegal"  men.  Thus  the  principal  function  of 
the  union  was  to  guard  the  competitive  area.  This  area, 
on  account  of  the  trade  character  of  the  business  unit 
and  the  local  character  of  competition,  was  the  craft  in 
the  local  community.  Hence  the  union  was  a  local  craft 
union. 

Here  appears  what  may  be  taken  as  a  hypothetical 
general  principle  of  unionism,  if  there  is  such  a  thing. 
The  union  organization  tends  to  parallel  the  capitalistic 
or  employers'  organization.  It  attempts  to  cover  the  in- 
dustrial field  within  which  there  is  labor  competition 
with  respect  to  work,  wages,  and  conditions  of  employ- 
ment. If  this  principle  be  true,  it  will  explain  many  of 
the  most  significant  things  about  unionism.  Let  us  fol- 
low this  as  one  clue  and  attempt  to  unravel  the  history 
of  unionism  in  this  country. 

First,  by  way  of  hypothesis  then,  in  testing  results, 
consider  to  what  extent,  if  at  all,  this  principle  really  ex- 
plains the  history  of  unionism  and  what  other  working 
factors  must  be  brought  in  for  this.  If  this  principle 
were  true  would  unionism  probably  be  a  relatively  fixed 
or  highly  protean  or  changing  thing?  How  w^ould  it  be 
likely  to  develop  to  meet  the  situation,  where,  apprentice- 


A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW  8i 

ship  being  broken  down,  the  competitive  area  of  workers 
or  the  workers'  market  becomes  intertrade,  i.e.,  where 
competition  of  workers  in  several  skilled  trades  in  a 
given  locality  exists?  Trades  unions  and  city  centrals 
would  develop.  Suppose  that  transportation  improves 
so  that  this  competitive  market  of  skilled  workers  be- 
comes intercity  or  national?  What  then?  National 
trades  unions  would  arise.  Suppose  that  a  craft  or  sev- 
eral crafts  should  succeed  in  building  up  apprenticeship 
again  or  enforcing  a  closed  shop,  but  transportation  has 
developed  so  that  the  craft  members  compete  directly, 
not  only  locally  but  generally  throughout  the  nation? 
National  craft  or  trade  unions  would  spring  up.  Now 
suppose  that,  as  the  result  of  the  introduction  of  machin- 
ery in  production,  the  task  becomes  similar  in  different 
skilled  crafts  and  that  unskilled  workers  can  compete 
with  skilled  craftsmen?  Labor  unions,  first  local  and 
then  national,  would  come  into  existence.  Finally,  sup- 
pose that  the  capitalistic  or  employing  unit  enlarges  to 
cover  and  control  the  whole  industry?  Then  would  come 
into  being  the  industrial  union. 

Now,  did  the  actual  development  of  unionism  follow 
the  line  laid  down  hypothetically  ?  To  test  this  we  must 
consider  the  periods  of  the  history  of  unionism  in  the 
United  States  and  examine  each.  The  basis  for  periodi- 
zation  is  the  development  of  predominant  types.  The 
response  of  unions  both  structurally  and  functionally, 
especially  to  economic  influences,  will  be  somewhat  de- 
layed on  the  principle  of  retardation. 

I.     Beginnings  in  the  local  craft  union,  1798-1827. 

The  economic  causes  at  work  were  the  differentiation  of 
the  employing  and  working  functions,  a  small  business  unit, 


Si  TRADE  UNIONISM 

and  local  markets.  The  causes  of  the  first  appearance  of 
trade  or  labor  unions  were  the  development  of  a  master- 
workman-retailer  and  especially  of  the  jobber  and  merchant 
middleman,  a  development  made  possible  by  the  introduction 
of  machinery,  accumulation  of  capital,  increase  of  popula- 
tion, and  improvement  of  transportation  with  consequent 
widening  of  market — dividing  the  ranks  of  the  craftsmen 
into  two  classes,  masters  and  journeymen,  i.e.,  establishing 
the  wages  system.  Then  came  labor  unions.  They  were 
organized  because  of  the  coming  of  capitalistic  conditions, 
an  employing  class,  general  market,  labor  competition,  stra- 
tegic advantage  of  the  masters  with  a  tendency  to  lower 
wages,  to  bring  in  inferior  workmen,^  the  lengthening  of 
hours,  and  also  because  the  association  of  a  large  number 
of  journeymen  workers  in  each  craft  made  organization 
natural  and  possible. 

The  first  local  craft  unions  to  arise  were  the  Philadel- 
phia Carpenters,  1791,  the  Philadelphia  Federal  Society 
of  Journeymen  Cordwainers,  1794,  the  Typographical  Soci- 
ety of  New  York,  1794,  the  Baltimore  Tailors,  1795,  and 
the  Baltimore  Typographical  Society,  1803.  There  were  no 
national  organizations,  though  local  unions  of  the  same  craft 
occasionally  corresponded  on  matters  of  common  interest. 
Industry  had  not  yet  been  organized  beyond  the  craft,  a 
building  was  put  up  by  an  employing  mason,  employing 
carpenter,  etc.  Markets  were  not  yet  national,  for  trans- 
portation would  not  admit  of  wide  markets,  and  intercity 
competition  was  little  felt.  The  main  problems  which  these 
early   unions   had   to   face   were :   The   securing  of  better 

^  Under  the  domestic  and  handicraft  systems  the  interest  or 
duty  of  employers  is  to  teach  beginners  the  whole  trade.  Under 
the  new  system  there  is  no  such  interest  or  duty.  The  purpose 
is  simply  to  get  the  work  done  cheaply.  So  boys  are  hired  and 
kept  at  one  task,  thus  nibbling  off  the  skilled  work  of  journey- 
men and  creating  two  opposed  classes  of  workers, 


A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW  83 

wages,  hours  and  conditions  of  work,  in  the  face  of  local 
competition  of  inferior  and  "illegal"  workmen,  and  prose- 
cution for  conspiracy,  and  the  care  of  unfortunate  mem- 
bers. The  main  resultant  functions  of  these  first  unions 
were  accordingly :  Mutual  insurance,  sick  and  funeral  bene- 
fits, collective  bargaining,  regulation  of  apprenticeship,  regu- 
lation of  wages,  hours  and  conditions  of  work,  exclusion 
of  "illegal"  men,  defense  against  prosecution  (conspiracy 
cases)  and  strikes. 

II.     Predominance  of  trades  unions,  1827-1837.* 

City  associations  of  craft  unions  and  the  beginnings  of 
national  trade  unions  appear.  The  causes  are  economic 
and.  social.  The  economic  cause  is  the  broadening  of  mar- 
kets and  competitive  areas ;  the  social  cause  is  manhood 
suffrage,  which  stimulates  to  the  correction  of  social  and 
political  evils,  mainly  inflated  money  and  the  high  cost 
of  living,  educational  and  assumed  political  inequalities. 
This  period  may  be  divided  into  three  phases. 

First  phase,  1827.  The  Philadelphia  Mechanics'  Union  of 
Trade  Associations,  1827-1832,  as  a  type,  developed  into 
the   Workingmen's   Party   of   Philadelphia.      It   stood    for 

*  The  first  unions  are  confined  to  one  particular  group  of 
wagcworkers.  Within  this  group  conditions  such  as  we  have 
assumed  would  produce  only  one  functional  type  of  union — the 
business  union.  The  structure  is  determined  by  this  viewpoint 
and  program  and  takes  the  craft  form.  After  an  expansion, 
there  is  a  dying  out  into  mutual  insurance  groups.  Then  the 
unionism  which  revives  in  the  thirties  as  contrasted  with  the 
old  unionism  supplies  the  historical  test  of  functional  types. 
Was  it  the  renewal  and  adaptation  of  the  old  unionism  in  a  new 
and  distinct  functional  type  ?  Was  it  made  up  of  the  same  men 
or  same  class  of  workers?  Did  the  business  union  movement 
run  parallel  to  it?  If  so,  were  the  two  movements  actual  rivals? 
Is  the  new  movement  hitched  genetically  on  to  the  old?    Wliat 


84  TRADE  UNIONISM 

shorter  hours,  free  schools,  the  abolition  of  imprisonment 
for  debt,  the  reform  of  the  militia  system,  mechanics'  lien 
law,  equal  taxation,  cheapened  legal  procedure,  no  reli- 
gious legislation,  direct  election  of  public  officials,  and  op- 
position to  banks  and  other  monopolies. 

Second  phase,  1832- 1837.  There  are  national  trades 
unions  and  local  trades  unions.  This  was  a  period  of 
reaction  against  political  methods.  But  the  political  issues 
of  the  previous  period  were  continued.  Demands  were 
made  in  regard  to  hours,  wages,  money,  public  employ- 
ment, factory  legislation,  competition  of  women  and 
prison  labor,  freedom  of  public  lands,  and  cooperation. 

Third  phase,  1835-1837.  At  least  five  national  trade  un- 
ions were  organized ;  cordwainers,  comb  makers,  carpenters, 
hand-loom  weavers,  and  printers.  The  causes  may  be  found 
in  the  increased  competition  in  the  craft,  broadening  with 
transportation  and  markets.  The  period  ends  with  the  crisis 
of  1837,  and  an  interregnum  follows. 

III.  Predominance  of  Utopian,  socialistic  and  social  up- 
lift unionism,   1844-1853. 

The  Workingmen's  Protective  Union  was  organized  in 
1847,  the  New  England  Workingmen's  Association,  and 
the  Land  Reform  Movement  in  1844-1845.  Industrial 
Councils  and  Working  Class  Congresses  were  held. 

Their  aims  were  the  establishment  of  cooperation,  com- 
munities, land  reform,  and  the  ten-hour  day.  Great  waves 
of  utopianism  swept  over  the  country,  resulting  in  Brook 
Farm,  etc.  There  was  a  general  disposition  to  try  com- 
munistic and  cooperative  schemes,  all  of  which  resulted  in 
practical  failure.  A  general  humanitarian  and  democratic 
agitation  resulted  in  attempts  to  form  parties.  The  ten- 
were  the  racial,  temperamental,  and  class  contrasts  between  the 
membership  of  the  two  movements? 


A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW  85 

hour  movement  was  started  but  was  unsuccessful.  The 
woman  and  child  labor  and  free  land  agitation  was  partly 
successful.  The  free  school  movement  succeeded.  Nu- 
merous political  reforms  furthered  democracy.  After  1852, 
the  slavery  agitation  absorbed  attention  and  the  panic  of 
1857  killed  the  movement. 

IV.  Reorganization  of  local  unions  and  beginnings  of 
national  trade  unions,  1853-1860. 

The  causes  were  increase  in  cost  of  living  and  the  na- 
tional markets,  bringing  about  national  competition  which 
led  skilled  craftsmen  in  a  few  trades  to  seek  to  cover  the 
competitive  area. 

V.  The  revival  of  trades  unions,  1860-1866. 

The  beginning  of  the  new  movement  is  due  largely  to 
the  high  cost  of  living  resulting  from  currency  inflation. 
Machinery  was  breaking  down  trade  exclusiveness,  markets 
were  becoming  national,  and  the  business  unit  was  enlarg- 
ing. Thirty  city  trade  assemblies  sprang  up  before  1865. 
Objects  were  boycotts  and  aid  to  strikes.  In  1864  the 
first  National  Industrial  Assembly  of  North  America  dealt 
with  primary  boycotts,  strikes,  the  truck  system,  coopera- 
tion, prison  labor,  competition,  and  woman's  work. 

VI.  Attempted  amalgamation  of  national  craft  unions, 
1 866- 1 874. 

The  causes  were  those  given  under  V  above,  the  high 
cost  of  living,  and  the  increase  of  competition  due  to  the 
return  of  soldiers  and  to  immigration.  Two  phases  char- 
acterized this  period.  The  first  was  that  of  the  National 
Labor  Union,  organized  in  1866  at  Baltimore.  It  was  a 
federation  formed  by  trade  unionists  but  all  labor  organ- 
izations were  represented.  A  general  union  did  not  appeal, 
however,  to  a  majority.  They  were  craft  unions,  but 
with   political   functions  largely.     In    1866  the   federation 


86  TRADE  UNIONISM 

stood  for  the  eight-hour  day,  cooperation,  publicity,  tene- 
ment house  reform,  and  public  lands  only  for  settlers.  It 
recommended  trade  organization  and  the  association  of 
those  workers  who  had  no  trade  with  labor  unions,  the  rigid 
enforcement  of  the  apprenticeship  system,  workingmen's 
lyceums  and  reading  rooms.  It  opposed  strikes  except  as 
a  last  resort  and  was  in  favor  of  arbitration.  In  1867  it 
dealt  with  the  money  question,  and  opposed  the  national 
banking  system.  It  now  also  stood  for  an  optional  form 
of  organization,  aid  to  women  workers,  cooperative  stores 
and  workshops,  and  mechanics'  institutes.  It  was  opposed 
to  marketed  convict-labor  goods.  In  1869  began  its  de- 
cline and  in  1872  it  died.  The  second  phase  was  that  of 
the  Industrial  Brotherhood.  A  call  was  issued  in  1872  by 
the  national  trade  unions  and  the  first  convention  was  held 
in  1873.  A  preamble  or  declaration  of  principles  was 
adopted,  which  was  later  taken  over  by  the  Knights  of 
Labor,  except  that  the  Industrial  Brotherhood  called  for 
monthly  payment  of  wages  by  corporations,  public  markets, 
cheap  transportation,  apprenticeship  laws  and  the  exclusion 
of  the  Chinese.  It  contemplated  organization  by  trade.  Its 
failure,  says  Mr.  Powderly,  was  due  to  the  dislike  of  trade 
unionists  for  the  idea  of  unity  with  men  outside  their  own 
trade,  and  in  particular  with  common  laborers.  There  was 
a  labor  reform  party  from  1869  to  1872. 

The  general  tendencies  which  characterized  the  develop- 
ment of  American  unionism  after  the  Civil  War  were  the 
beginnings  of  working  class  consciousness,  socialist  effort 
to  control  the  unions,  increased  political  and  militant  ac- 
tivity, and  universal  centralized  organization. 

VII.  Predominance  of  the  universal  labor  union,  the 
Knights  of  Labor,   1879-1890. 

Craft  exclusiveness  was  being  broken  down  by  machinery 
and  trusts,  and  employers'  associations  were  being  formed, 


A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW  87 

and  the  competition  of  the  unskilled  was  being  felt.  The 
aims  of  the  Knights  were  idealistic,  humanitarian,  and 
political. 

VIII.  Predominance  of  federation  of  national  craft 
unions,  1890  to  the  present.  The  American  Federation  of 
Labor,  and  National  Employers'  Associations. 

IX.  Beginnings  of  industrial  unionism. 

Industrial  plants,  employers'  associations  and  real  class 
consciousness  developing. 

To  summarize  brielly  the  character  and  causes  of  the 
development  of  unionism  in  the  United  States,  we  may 
say  that  its  genesis  was  in  economic  and  political  causes, 
in  the  separation  of  functions  and  the  rise  of  classes,  and 
the  breakdown  of  customary  and  legal  rules.  The  situa- 
tion created  a  need  for  combination  of  the  workers  to 
protest  against  the  reduction  of  wages,  etc.  These  and 
the  character  of  the  employing  unit  and  market  deter- 
mined the  form,  the  local  craft  union,  and  its  functional 
type,  business  unionism.  The  widening  of  the  market 
and  increased  competition  demanded  enlargement  of  the 
union  unit;  manhood  suffrage  turned  attention  to  legis- 
lation and  political  means.  Hence  we  find  trades  unions, 
local  and  national,  with  a  legislative  program  added  to 
the  economic,  and  a  tendency  to  political  party  activity. 
The  failure  of  poHtical  methods  caused  a  reaction  to 
economic  means  as  the  best  instrument  under  the  circum- 
stances. There  are  national  trade  unions  which  are  ex- 
amples of  business  unionism.  The  hard  times  wipe  out 
the  movement.  The  Utopian  and  philosophical  spirit  and 
theories  create  political  and  uplift  unionism  again.  The 
drawing  off  of  idealistic  elements  w^ith  the  Civil  War 


88  TRADE  UNIONISM 

causes  a  renewal  of  national  trade  unions  and  business 
unionism.  A  struggle  between  business  and  idealistic, 
political,  uplift  unionism  results  in  the  triumph  of  busi- 
ness unionism,  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  the 
national  craft  federation.  An  enlargement  of  the  busi- 
ness unit  in  industry  and  theorizing  result  in  the  indus- 
trial union,  which  is  revolutionary.  The  failure  of  craft 
unionism  added  to  the  experience  of  business  unionism 
turns  business-craft  unionism  into  predatory  unionism. 

Craft  unions  tend  to  be  businesslike,  selfish,  nonideal- 
istic,  nonpolitical,  nondemocratic ;  trades  unions  tend  to 
be  group-conscious  and  political ;  labor  unions  tend  to 
be  idealistic,  moralistic,  theoretical,  political,  but  non- 
democratic;  industrial  unions  tend  to  be  class-conscious, 
socialistic,  and  theoretical.  But  while  there  is  some  sort 
of  correlation  here  between  structural  and  functional 
types,  would  it  be  possible  to  explain  the  functional  type 
on  the  basis  of  the  single  principle  involved?  Does  not 
causation  seem  to  run  from  function  to  structure,  more 
than  the  other  way?  Conditions  and  problems  produce 
aims,  attitudes,  and  theories;  these  produce  policies  and 
demands  and  methods.  In  the  actual  history  of  union- 
ism do  we  not  find  structural  and  functional  types  corre- 
lated in  different  ways?  For  example,  at  one  period  all 
the  unions  of  different  structural  types  seem  to  be  closely 
alike  functionally. 

The  structural  and  functional  types  sometimes  stand 
in  cooperative  and  interpenetrating  relationship,  some- 
times in  a  state  of  rivalry;  sometimes  they  are  rival 
or  alternating  modes  of  organization  and  action, 
springing  up  independently.  Sometimes  one  is  the  prod- 
uct of  the  other.  And  in  other  cases  there  are  purely  dis- 
tinct types  representing  different  conceptions  or  interre- 


A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW  89 

lations  of  a  situation  or  a  different  situation.  We  start 
with  the  business  type.  Where  this  fails  the  tendency  is 
to  degenerate  into  friendly  societies.  We  have  then  busi- 
ness unionism  as  a  minor  aspect,  uplift  as  the  major 
aspect.  Finally,  business  unionism  goes  on,  uplift  un- 
ionism is  a  settled  thing,  and  the  revolutionary  type  be- 
gins to  come  to  the  front.  The  history  of  unionism  thus 
shows  two  opposite  tendencies,  toward  the  harmoniza- 
tion and  unification  of  structural  types,  and  the  fanning 
out,  separation,  and  distinction  of   functional  types. 

At  the  present  time  the  Knights  of  Labor  number  less 
than  ten  thousand.  Of  what  significance  are  they  to  this 
study  and  why  should  we  consider  them?  In  the  effort 
to  solve  the  trade  union  problem  of  control  we  must  know 
what  type  of  organization  can  and  what  type  cannot  be 
maintained  under  present  day  conditions.  The  Knights 
of  Labor  had  elements  of  temporary  success  but  on  the 
whole  it  was  found  unfit.    It  is  essential  to  know  why. 

The  general  governing  body  of  the  Knights  of  Labor 
is  the  General  Assembly.  This  is  a  delegate  body  from 
organizations  directly  subordinate.  Its  base  is  a  local 
assembly.  Some  locals  are  attached  directly  to  the  gen- 
eral assembly  but  most  of  them  are  organized  into  dis- 
trict and  state  assemblies.  The  district  assembly  is  made 
up  of  delegates  from  five  or  more  locals.  It  may  be 
subordinate  to  a  state  assembly,  to  a  national  trade  as- 
sembly or  to  the  general  assembly.  The  membership 
basis  may  be  craft  or  mixed.  The  state  assembly  has 
jurisdiction  over  all  the  territory  not  organized  into 
mixed  district  assemblies.  The  national  trade  assembly 
has  jurisdiction  over  local  trade  assemblies. 

The  centralization  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  is  perhaps 


90  TRADE  UNIONISM 

best  shown  by  the  fact  that  all  the  organizations  have 
their  character  and  rules  defined  by  and  are  governed 
by  one  constitution.  To  understand  completely  the 
structure  and  function  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  it  is 
necessary  to  read  but  one  constitution.  To  understand 
fully  the  functions  and  structure  of  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor,  over  a  hundred  constitutions  must  be 
read.  The  Knights  of  Labor  is  a  sovereignty,  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  is  a  federation  of  sov- 
ereignties. The  centralization  is  also  shown  in  the  regu- 
lations in  regard  to  strikes.  Local  assemblies  choose 
executive  boards  to  which  are  referred  any  grievances 
between  employer  and  employed ;  should  they  fail  to  ad- 
just the  matter  reference  is  made  to  the  national  or  dis- 
trict executive  boards;  should  these  fail,  it  is  referred 
then  to  the  general  executive  board.  No  strikes  are 
permitted  to  be  declared  or  entered  upon  without  sanc- 
tion of  the  national,  district,  or  general  executive  board. 
Finally,  centralization  is  also  shown  in  the  matter  of 
discipline. 

The  essential  functions  of  the  organization  are  re- 
vealed by  the  following  quotation : 

The  Knights  of  Labor  Assembly  is  not  a  mere  trade  union 
and  beneficial  society.  ...  It  aims  to  assist  members  to 
better  their  condition  morally,  socially  and  financially.  .  .  . 
Among  the  higher  duties  that  should  be  taught  in  every  local 
assembly  are  man's  inalienable  inheritance  of  and  right  to 
share,  for  use,  the  soil;  that  the  right  to  life  carries 
with  it  the  right  to  the  means  of  living  and  all  statutes  that 
obstruct  or  deny  these  rights  are  wrong,  unjust  and  must 
give  way.  Every  member  who  has  the  right  to  vote  is  a 
part  of  the  government  .  .  .  and  has  a  duty  to  perform. 
-    -    .    In  short,  any  action  that  will  advance  the  cause 


A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW  91 

of  humanity,  lighten  the  burden  of  toil  or  elevate  the 
moral  or  social  condition  of  mankind  ...  is  the  proper 
scope  and  field  of  operation  of  a  local  assembly.  (Consti- 
tution [1908],  pp.  40-41.) 

The  Knights  of  Labor  is  not  a  revolutionary  organi- 
zation. It  does  not  reject  and  seek  to  overthrow  the 
present  social  and  industrial  order,  although  the  consti- 
tution says  that  its  purpose  is  to  secure  to  the  workers 
the  full  enjoyment  of  the  wealth  they  create  ...  to 
enable  them  to  share  in  the  gains  and  honors  of  advanc- 
ing civilization  (Constitution,  p.  3,  II)  ;  and  that  strikes 
at  best  afford  only  temporary  relief  and  members  should 
be  educated  to  depend  upon  thorough  organization  and 
political  action  and  through  these  the  abolition  of  the 
present  system,  (Constitution,  p.  40.)  Its  program 
rather  is  progressive,  with  some  revolutionary  items. 
It  includes  direct  legislation,  the  initiative,  referendum, 
the  imperative  mandate  and  proportional  representation ; 
labor  bureaus,  to  promote  the  educational,  moral  and 
financial  knowledge  of  the  laboring  masses;  a  demand 
for  occupancy  and  use  as  the  sole  title  to  land,  the  un- 
earned increment  to  go  to  society;  dealing  in  options  to 
be  made  a  felony;  abrogation  of  unequal  laws,  of  de- 
lays, discriminations,  and  unjust  technicalities;  health 
and  safety  laws  in  industry;  accident  insurance;  the  in- 
corporation of  labor  organizations;  weekly  payments 
in  money;  mechanics'  lien  law;  abolition  of  the  contract 
system  on  public  works;  opposition  to  strikes  and  boy- 
cotts; support  of  laws  compelling  arbitration;  prohibi- 
tion of  child  labor  under  fifteen  years;  compulsory  edu- 
cation and  free  textbooks;  cooperation  "such  as  will 
tend  to  supersede  the  wage  system";  graduated  income 


^i  Trade  unionism 

tax ;  direct  issue  of  legal  tender ;  no  private  banking  cor- 
porations, nor  interest-bearing  government  bills  of  credit ; 
postal  saving  banks ;  government  ownership  of  the  tele- 
graph, telephone  and  railroads;  prohibition  of  convict 
labor;  and  prohibition  of  hired  out  and  contract  immi- 
gration. 

The  Knights  of  Labor  is  not  a  class  organization.  In 
it  are  crystallized  sentiments  and  measures  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  whole  people.  (Constitution,  preamble.)  It 
calls  upon  all  those  who  believe  in  the  greatest  good 
for  the  greatest  number  (Ibid),  and  it  approves  any 
action  that  would  advance  the  cause  of  humanity,  lighten 
the  burden  of  toil,  or  elevate  the  moral  and  social  con- 
dition of  mankind  (Constitution,  p.  41).  It  demands 
the  abrogation  of  all  laws  which  do  not  bear  equally 
upon  capitalists  and  laborers  (Constitution,  preamble, 
p.  4)  in  order  that  the  bond  of  sympathy  between  them 
(employers  and  employees)  may  be  strengthened  (Con- 
stitution, p.  5).  It  deprecates  attacks  upon  the  consti- 
tuted authorities  such  as  the  judiciary.  At  least  three- 
fourths  of  the  general  assembly  must  be  farmers  or 
wageworkers.  (Constitution,  p.  43.)  The  purpose  of 
its  organization  is  the  organizing,  educating  and  direct- 
ing of  the  powers  of  the  industrial  masses  (Constitu- 
tion, preamble,  p.  3)  while  it  gathers  into  one  fold  all 
branches  of  honorable  toil  (Constitution,  p.  40).  It  de- 
clares that  the  alarming  development  and  aggressiveness 
of  the  power  of  money  and  corporations  under  the  pres- 
ent industrial  and  political  systems  .  .  .  lead  to  hope- 
less degradation.     (Constitution,  premable,  p.  3.) 

Mr.  Powderly  attributes  the  enormous  growth  of  the 
Order  between  the  latter  part  of  1885  and  the  early  part 
of  1886  to  two  circumstances,  for  which  the  Order  it- 


A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW  93 

self  is  not  responsible.  One  was  the  movement  for  the 
establishment  of  the  eight-hour  day,  the  other  was  the 
spread  of  an  extravagant  idea  of  the  strength  of  the 
Order.  The  public  believed  that  a  strike  had  been  or- 
dered by  the  Knights  to  take  place  May  i,  1886,  for  the 
purpose  of  shortening  the  hours  of  labor.  Because  of 
this  belief  an  exaggerated  popular  opinion  of  the  power 
of  the  Knights  spread.  Hundreds  of  thousands  who 
hoped  to  get  profit  from  it,  without  any  desire  to  give 
as  well  as  to  get,  joined  the  Order,  Its  membership 
was  reported  to  be  104,335  in  1885,  and  jumped  to  702,- 
924  in  1886.  Mr.  Powderly  claims,  however,  that  the 
actual  number  was  not  over  90,000  in  1885  and  600,000 
in  1886.     The  membership  reported  in  1888  was  259,- 

518.^ 

The  fundamental  underlying  causes  of  the  failure  of 
the  Knights  of  Labor  consist  in  the  fact  that  it  was  con- 
trary to  the  reality  created  by  modern  industrial  forces. 
Machinery  was  forcing  a  materialistic  contest.  This  con- 
test is  not  between  the  "money  power"  and  the  people, 
but  between  the  employers  and  the  workers.  Any  at- 
tempt to  hide  this  under  the  cloak  of  a  concept  of  "so- 
ciety as  a  whole"  is  bound  to  fail.  Likewise,  attempts  to 
bridge  it  over  by  cooperation  and  idealism  must  fail. 
The  contest  is  opposed  to  industrial  peace  and  good-fel- 
lowship ideas;  the  age  of  utopianism  is  past,  and  the 
idealistic  attitude  is  not  fitted  to  cope  with  the  workers' 
problem.  Hence  the  Knights  succumbed  in  the  contest 
with  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  which  stood 
more  nearly  for  the  ideals  and  demands  of  the  workers. 

The  Knights  of  Labor  proceeded  upon  two  false  as- 
sumptions, and  as  a  consequence  attempted  to  do  two 

» Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission  (1901),  vol  XVII,  p.  8, 


94  TRADE  UNIONISM 

impossible  things.  First,  it  assumed  no  fundamental 
disharmony  of  viewpoint  and  interest  between  wage- 
workers  and  employers  as  such.  It  therefore  tried  to 
unite  workers  and  the  middle  class  against  the  "money 
power."  Secondly,  it  assumed  that  the  viewpoint  and 
interest  of  all  wageworkers  are  identical.  It  therefore 
tried  to  unite  the  workers  of  all  degrees  of  skill  and  of 
all  crafts  and  industries  into  one  organization  and  under 
one  central  authority  which  should  direct  the  actions  of 
each  group  in  the  interests  of  all. 

The  first  assumption  was  false  and  the  effort  to  or- 
ganize and  act  upon  it  a  failure,  for  reasons  we  have 
already  discussed.  Under  the  capitalistic  wage  system, 
the  product  of  industry  is  divided  into  two  parts,  each 
part  going  to  a  distinct  class,  the  one,  exclusive  owners 
of  the  material  means  of  production,  the  other,  the  ex- 
clusive owners  of  labor.  The  immediate  interests  of  the 
two  classes  must  thus  center  in  the  division  of  the  prod- 
uct and  be  opposed,  and  it  is  the  immediate  interests  of 
men,  especially  of  the  workers,  who  must  depend  upon 
immediate  incomes  in  order  to  live,  that  determine  the 
possibilities  of  organic  union  and  cooperation  among 
them.  Hence,  these  two  classes  are  bound  to  be  opposed 
unless  they  can  get  together  to  "do"  some  one  else. 

Under  the  system  of  machine  industry,  the  division  of 
function  throws  the  workers  and  employers  into  such 
diverse  material  and  social  environments  that  inevitably 
diverse  viewpoints  develop  and  create  a  belief  in  diversity 
of  interest  even  when  this  diversity  does  not  exist — a  be- 
lief that  must  exist  as  long  as  machine  industry  with  its 
functional  and  environmental  corollaries  exists.  The 
Knights  of  Labor  was  thus  built  upon  a  permanently 
false  foundation,  and  its  failure  goes  far  to  show  that 


A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW  95 

the  union  problem  cannot  be  solved  by  any  attempt  to 
bring  together  into  one  organization  the  employing  and 
working  elements.  Successful  unionism  must  be  an  or- 
ganization of  wageworkers,  and  unionism  as  a  social 
problem  must  be  accepted  as  an  organization  of  wage- 
workers  seeking  their  own  interests  as  such. 

The  second  assumption,  that  the  viewpoint  and  interest 
of  all  workers  are  identical,  was  equally  false  for  the 
time,  and  apparently  for  the  present  and  the  discernible 
future.  So  long  as  there  exist  among  the  wageworkers 
practically  what  the  economists  call  noncompetitive 
groups,  that  is,  so  long  as  there  exist  distinct  crafts  in 
industry  whose  members  do  not  compete,  and  so  long  as 
machinery  has  not  broken  down  the  practically  non- 
competitive barriers  between  skilled  and  unskilled  work- 
ers, no  general  organic  union  of  all  the  workers,  each 
acting  in  the  interest  of  all,  can  be  secured.  Under  these 
circumstances  each  craft  and  group  of  workers  must 
have  its  own  conditions  and  problems  to  face  and  to 
solve.  No  one  else  can  understand  its  peculiar  conditions 
and  problems  well  enough  to  formulate  rules  applicable 
to  its  ends.  Its  problems  can  be  solved  only  by  rules 
applying  particularly  to  its  conditions,  without  reference 
to  any  more  general  situation.  Each  craft  and  industry, 
then,  can  best  serve  its  own  economic  ends  by  acting 
alone,  unhampered  by  outside  restrictions,  and  regardless 
of  outside  interests  and  purposes.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, again,  the  immediate  economic  interests  of  the 
different  groups  are  not  identical  or  harmonious.  It  is 
not  true,  as  the  Knights  of  Labor  supposed,  that  an  in- 
jury to  one  is  an  injury  to  all.  This  is  perfectly  evi- 
dent if  we  take  a  practical  common  sense  view  of  the 
matter.    Let  us  take  the  case  of  wages.    Just  so  far  as 


96  TRADE  UNIONISM 

general  competition  exists,  the  interests  of  one  craft  may 
be  definitely  opposed  to  the  interests  of  others.  When 
one  stands  to  gain,  the  others  may  stand  to  lose,  and 
vice  versa.  This  is  equally  true  between  craft  and  craft, 
and  between  skilled  and  unskilled  workers.  To  show 
this,  take  the  case  of  craft  A  which  is  struggling  for  an 
increase  of  wages.  If  it  succeeds,  the  increase  of  wages 
may  be  an  increased  cost  of  production  of  the  goods, 
and  may  be  an  increase  of  the  price  of  the  goods.  This 
would  be  a  lowering  of  the  real  wages  of  other  crafts 
whose  members  consume  the  goods.®  Every  increase  of 
the  wages  of  skilled  workers  under  these  circumstances 
is  a  lowering  of  the  standard  of  living  of  the  unskilled, 
and  vice  versa.  Looking  at  it  in  another  way,  one  of 
the  means  of  securing  a  rise  of  wages  in  a  single  craft 
is  through  a  limitation  of  numbers.  What  does  this 
mean?  It  means  turning  men  into  other  crafts  or  into 
the  unskilled  mass  to  increase  the  numbers  and  the  com- 
petition of  workers  with  the  result  of  lowering  wages 
there.  In  a  very  real  way  then,  the  workers  are  them- 
selves divided  into  numerous  groups  with  opposed  eco- 
nomic interests. 

It  is  only  on  the  one  hand,  as  the  employing  unit 
enlarges  and  employers  unite  so  that  a  single  craft  finds 
itself  face  to  face  with  a  superior  force,  capable  of  play- 
ing ofiP  craft  against  craft,  that  the  craft  unions  are 
brought  to  see  their  common  economic  interests  and  the 
necessity  of  common  organization  and  common  action. 

*  Only  as  we  look  at  the  matter  statically  need  the  effect  of 
one  group's  advance  on  other  groups  be  considered.  If  we  view 
the  matter  dynamically,  labor's  demands  will  force  employers 
to  make  improvements,  increase  efficiency  in  spite  of  labor's 
hampering  influence,  and  thus  secure  more  for  all. 


A  BRIEF  liiSTORlCAL  REVIEW  97 

It  is  only,  on  the  other  hand,  as  machinery  gradually 
breaks  up  industry  into  little  tasks  that  can  be  performed 
by  unskilled  workers,  thus  destroying  the  apprenticeship 
system,  and  so  letting  in  the  competition  of  the  unskilled 
on  the  skilled,  that  the  real  interests  of  the  two  groups 
seem  to  be  common.  These  are  the  economic  reasons  for 
the  development  of  industrial  unionism,  and  the  growth 
of  working-class  solidarity.  The  skilled  workers  in  gen- 
eral have  no  love  for  the  unskilled,  the  successful  for  the 
unsuccessful.  There  is  every  economic  reason  why  they 
should  not  have.  They  worry  about  the  unskilled  when 
they  are  in  danger  of  losing  their  advantages  and  places, 
due  to  the  unstinted  competition  of  the  unskilled,  and 
they  then  develop  a  ''labor  as  a  whole"  attitude.  So 
long  as  the  craft  organization  can  keep  up  a  successful 
fight  of  its  own  it  is  not  going  to  forego  its  advantages 
for  outside  labor,  and,  equally,  the  crafts  cannot  be  made 
to  combine  together,  except  as  loose  federations  mainly 
for  legislative  activity  and  mutual  aid.  Immediate  eco- 
nomic interests,  wages,  hours,  and  conditions  of  employ- 
ment are  still  the  predominant  matters  in  the  minds  of 
the  rank  and  file  of  the  workers,  rather  than  general 
political  and  social  interests.  In  these  matters  group 
consciousness  of  the  workers  is  still  in  the  craft  stage 
rather  than  in  the  class  stage.  Differences  in  craft  in- 
terest still  mean  more  than  unity  of  class  interest.  Con- 
ditions, needs  and  problems  of  workers  are  different  in 
different  industries  and  different  places,  and  hard  and 
fast  attitudes,  policies,  and  methods  applicable  to  all  are 
bound  to  fail.  Therefore,  members  of  the  different  crafts 
could  not  be  forged  by  the  Knights  of  Labor  into  ef- 
fective weapons  of  attack  and  defense.  Members  of 
^acl^  craft  tended  to  cling  together  to  get  what  they 


98  TRADE  UNIONISM 

needed  without  regard  for,  or  even  at  the  expense  of, 
other  crafts.  They  were  jealous  of  other  crafts  and  of 
the  unskilled.  Furthermore,  common  rules  necessary  for 
the  prevention  of  undercutting  were  not  possible  for  a 
group  of  crafts. 

At  the  time  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  economic  factors 
tending  to  emphasize  the  common  economic  interests  of 
all  the  workers  had  only  just  begun  to  develop.  Even 
yet  they  are  not  powerful  enough  to  offset  the  real  dif- 
ferences of  interest.  The  Knights  of  Labor,  then,  was 
inevitably  doomed  to  failure,  regardless  of  its  political 
policies  and  its  disastrous  strikes.  It  was  far  ahead  of  its 
time,  altogether  Utopian.  Its  main  result  was  to  produce 
a  strong  reaction  to  the  craft  union  ideal  and  basis.  It 
proved  that  unionism  cannot  succeed  unless  it  keeps  close, 
in  the  character  of  its  organization  and  policy,  to  the 
economic  realities,  and  that  successful  unionism  above 
all  must  be  opportunistic,  that  unionism  is  bound  to  de- 
velop according  to  the  real  conditions  and  needs  of  the 
workers,  and  that  so  long  as  the  economic  conditions 
create  among  the  workers  group  interests  and  group  an- 
tagonisms, unionism  is  bound  to  be,  in  the  main,  a  selfish, 
craft  entity. 

Unionism  arose  in  America  when  conditions  first  ap- 
peared of  such  a  nature  as  to  induce  the  formation  of 
wageworkers'  group  psychologies,  interpretations  and 
programs.  This  has  been  true  throughout  the  history 
of  unionism  in  the  United  States.  In  so  far  as  unionism 
has  always  been  in  the  main  the  wageworkers'  inter- 
pretations and  programs  under  the  system  of  capitalistic 
production,  with  the  definite  separation  of  employer  and 
employee,  these  groups  and  group  psychologies  are  found 


A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW  99 

in  opposition  to  the  employer.  "Hold-up"  unionism  and 
dependent  unionism,  both  parasitic  and  "yellow,"  are  the 
exceptions.  The  aims,  policies,  and  methods  of  trade 
unions  are  the  result  of  the  peculiar  problems  which  the 
unionists  have  to  face  and  of  the  conditions  accompany- 
ing these  problems.  The  character  of  the  aims,  policies 
and  methods  determines  the  structure  or  organic  char- 
acter of  the  union.  In  other  words,  problems  and  con- 
ditions determine  function,  function  determines  struc- 
ture. Unionism  develops  by  the  trial  method — is  a  proc- 
ess of  adaptation  to  a  developing  environment.  Pres- 
ent unionism  is  an  outcome  of  a  process  of  trial  and 
elimination.  The  union  organic  structure  shows  a  ten- 
dency to  parallel  the  capitalistic,  a  union  unit  to  meet 
each  capitalistic  unit.  Union  history  shows  a  constant 
struggle  between  the  forces  of  centralization  and  decen- 
tralization, autocracy  and  democracy,  social  idealism  and 
enlightened  self-interest,  narrow  trade  autonomy  and 
industrialism,  economic  and  political  method.  The  fail- 
ures of  unionism  in  the  past  have  been  largely  the  result 
of  centralization,  democracy,  social  idealism,  industrial- 
ism, and  political  method.  Unionism  today,  notwith- 
standing, seems  to  show  a  constant  tendency  toward 
higher  integration,  centralization,  autocracy,  social  ideal- 
ism, industrialism  and  political  method.  What  then  is 
unionism  ? 

Bibliography 

Adams  and  Sumner.     Labor  Problems  (1908),  pp.  215- 

228. 
Barnett,  Geo.  E.     "The  Printers,"  American  Economic 

'Association    Quarterly,    Third    Series,    vol.    X,    No.    3 

(1909). 
Bliss,  W.  D.  P.    Encyclopedia  of  Social  Reform, 


loo  TRADE  UNIONISM 

BoGART,  E.  L.    The  Economic  History  of  the  United  States 

■(I9I3)- 

Burke,  W.  M.  The  History  and  Functions  of  Central  La- 
bor Unions,  chap.  I.  Studies  in  History,  Economics  and 
Public  Law,  edited  by  the  Faculty  of  Political  Science  of 
Columbia  University,  vol.  XII,  No.  i  (1899). 

Carlton,  F.  T.  The  History  and  Problems  of  Organised 
Labor  (1911),  chaps.  II,  III,  IV,  V. 

.     "The    Workingmen's    Party   of    New    York    City" 

(1829-183 1 )  ;  Political  Scienic  Quarterly,  22:401  (1907). 

Commons,  John  R.  "Labor  Organization  and  Labor  Poli- 
tics" (1827-1837),  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics, 
21:323  (1906-1907). 

.     "American  Shoe  Makers"    (1648-1895),  Quarterly 

Journal  of  Economics,  24:39  (1909-1910). 

Deibler,  F.  S.  "The  Amalgamated  Wood  Workers'  Inter- 
national Union  of  America"  (1912),  Bulletin  of  the 
University  of  Wisconsin,  No.  511,  Economic  and  Political 
Science  Series,  vol.  VII,  No.  3. 

Documentary  History  of  American  Industrial  Society,  vols. 
Ill  to  X. 

Ely,  Richard  T.  The  Labor  Movement  in  America 
(1905),  chap.  III. 

Herron,  Belva  M.  "The  Progress  of  Labor  Organization 
among  Women,"  Bulletin  of  the  University  of  Illinois 

(1905). 

Hillquit,  Morris.  History  of  Socialism  in  the  United 
States  (1903). 

.  Recent  Progress  of  the  Socialist  and  Labor  Move- 
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Kirk,  William.  National  Labor  Federations  in  the  United 
States,  Johns  Hopkins  University  Studies  in  Historical 
and  Political  Science,  Series  XXIV,  No.  9-10  (1906). 

McNeill,  Geo.  E.  (Ed.).  The  Labor  Movement  (1887), 
chap.  IV,  pp.  67-123, 


A  BRIEF  HISTORICAL  REVIEW         loi 

Mitchell,  John.     Organized  Labor  (1903),  chaps.  Ill, 

IV,  VII,  VIII,  IX. 
Pope,   Jesse   E.      The   Clothing  Industry   in  New    York, 

University  of  Missouri  Studies,  Social  Science  Series,  vol. 

I  (1905). 
Powderly,  T.  V.    Thirty  Years  of  Labor  (1899). 
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XVII,  pt.  II  (1901). 
SwiNTON,  John.     Striking  for  Life  (1894). 
Woollen,   Evans.     "Labor   Troubles   Between    1834  and 

1837,"  Yale  Review,  1:87  (1892-1893). 
Wright,  Carroll  D.    Industrial  Evolution  of  the  United 

States  (1907),  chaps.  XVIII,  XIX,  XX. 

The  Knights  of  Labor 
Constitution. 

Addresses  of  General  Master  Workman. 
Official  Journal. 

Preamble  and  Declaration  of  Principles. 
Requisites  of  Knighthood. 
Charges. 
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228. 
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X,  pp.  19-35. 

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I02  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Levasseur,  E.     The  American  Workman  (1900),  pp.  196- 

203. 
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of  Labor. 
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XV,  pp.  397-428 ;  chap.  XIX,  pp.  483-496. 
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United  States,  pp.  246-252. 
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Economics,  1:137  (i^7)' 


CHAPTER  V 
PRESENT  UNION   GROUPS 

With  the  passing  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  as  the  cen- 
tral figure  in  the  American  labor  world,  we  touch  the 
borders  of  the  contemporary  situation.  As  we  shall  be 
treating  it  in  some  detail  in  this  chapter,  we  need,  in 
continuation  of  our  history  of  development,  only  such 
bare  outline  as  will  make  the  broad  features  of  the 
present  situation  clear. 

Contemporaneously  with  the  idealistic  labor  union 
movement  of  the  Knights  of  Labor,  there  was  a  develop- 
ing, vigorous,  and  independent  trade  union  movement, 
represented  by  national  trade  unions,  each  with  subor- 
dinate locals.  These  trade  unions  tended  toward  general 
aggregation  also.  But,  as  pure  trade  unionism  is  in 
general  practical,  businesslike,  selfish,  and  nonidealistic, 
each  trade  union  had  its  own  special  interests  and  pur- 
poses, not  always  in  harmony  with  and  not  rarely  antag- 
onistic to  the  purposes  and  interests  of  other  trade  un- 
ions. Trade  unionism  showed  itself,  therefore,  incom- 
patible with  strong,  universal,  centralized  organization. 
It  tended  toward  loose  federation.  A  contest  for  su- 
premacy between  the  form  of  organization  represented 
by  the  Knights  of  Labor  and  that  represented  by  the 
Federation,  compatible  with  trade  union  organization, 
was  inevitable.  This  contest  became  a  reality  in  1881, 
when  the  Federation  of  Organized  Trades  and  Labor 

103 


I04  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Unions  of  th^  United  States  and  Canada  was  formed, 
committed  to  the  principles  of  trade  autonomy,  and  in- 
dustrial, as  opposed  to  political  and  socialistic,  ideals  and 
activity.  In  1886  the  convention  of  this  organization 
amalgamated  with  the  convention  of  the  Independent 
trade  unions  to  form  the  American  Federation  of  Labor, 
which,  strengthening  gradually,  has  ever  since  occupied 
the  central  position  In  the  American  organized  labor 
world. 

In  the  success  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
and  the  failure  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  have  triumphed 
the  principles  of  weak  federative  organization  versus 
strong  centralized  organization,  autonomous  trade  un- 
ionism versus  labor  unionism  and  Industrial  unionism, 
selfish  trade  interests  versus  altruistic  labor  brotherhood, 
and  hard-headed  business  unionism  versus  Idealistic  radi- 
calism. Yet  it  is  to  be  noted  that  within  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  there  have  been  developing  steadily 
the  principles  of  industrialism  and  idealistic  radicalism, 
as  evidenced  by :  ( i )  the  admission  of  industrial  unions, 
such  as  the  International  Union  of  the  LTnited  Brewery 
Workmen  and  the  United  Mine  Workers  of  America; 

(2)  the  creation  of  subfederatlve  units,  the  departments; 

(3)  the  development  of  a  broad  social  program;  (4) 
reentrance  Into  politics;  and  (5)  the  growth  of  a  consid- 
erable socialistic  membership.  Indeed,  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor,  in  taking  the  place  of  the  Knights 
of  Labor,  has  occupied  a  sort  of  middle  ground  be- 
tween the  adherents  of  the  extreme  trade  union  and  the 
extreme  Industrial  and  labor  union  principles.  It  has 
satisfied  neither.  In  fact,  the  last  generation  of  the 
labor  movement  has  been  characterized  by  a  three-fold 
development.    On  one  side  of  the  American  Federation 


PRiiSENT  UNION  GROUPS  iO^ 

of  Labor  there  has  gone  on  a  steady  development  of  the 
independent,  national  trade  union  movement;  on  the 
other,  a  fitful  and  as  yet  unsuccessful  movement  toward 
a  universal,  centralized  union  of  labor  organizations  to 
take  the  place  of  the  moribund  Knights  of  Labor,^  and, 
finally,  an  independent  trade  union  movement  repre- 
sented by  a  fluctuating  body  of  some  twenty  national 
unions,^  with  perhaps  a  membership  of  500,000,  or  about 
one-fourth  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. 

In  a  descriptive  account  of  American  unionism,  the 
Railway  Brotherhoods  deserve  separate  consideration, 
because  railway  unionism  has  been  the  stronghold  of  the 
idea  and  practice  of  independent,  unaffiliated  trade  or 
craft  unionism,  and  pure  trade  unionism  has  among 
these  unions  had  its  greatest  success  and  clearest  exem- 
plification.    Here  we  can  see  most  clearly  what  trade 

^  The  fitful  movement  toward  centralized  industrial  organiza- 
tion, idealistic  and  radical  in  temperament,  has  not  been  kept 
alive  by  the  Knights  of  Labor,  which  has  dragged  out  to  a 
useless  old  age.  The  torch  was  first  carried  forward  by  railroad 
workers.  In  1893  the  American  Railway  Union  was  organized 
and  aimed  to  be  the  universal,  centralized,  industrial  organiza- 
tion of  railway  workers.  In  1894  it  called  a  strike  in  sympathy 
with  the  Pullman  workers,  with  Debs  leading.  This  wrecked  the 
union,  although  in  1895  i^  still  claimed  a  membership  of  150,000. 
(Bliss,  EncyclopecPia  of  Social  Reform.)  The  movement  was 
then  carried  on  for  a  time  by  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners 
(recently  renamed  the  International  Union  of  Mine,  Mill  and 
Smelter  Workers),  an  industrial  organization  of  miners,  mainly 
metal  workers  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  organized  about  1893 
and  with  a  strength  of  perhaps  40,000.  The  Western  Labor 
Union  was  formed  about  1898.  Shortly  after  came  the  Amer- 
ican Labor  Union,  which  claimed  at  one  time  135,000  members. 
The  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World  was  organized  in*  1905. 

2  For  a  partial  list  of  these  unions  see  Reports  of  the  New 
York  Department  of  Labor,  published  annually  since  1901, 


io6  TRADE  UNIONISM 

unionism  means  in  spirit  and  results.  By  this  it  is  not 
meant  that  industrial  unionism  has  not  appeared  in 
the  railway  field,  nor  that  the  railway  unions  have  all 
remained  aloof  from  the  general  labor  federations,  nor 
that  they  have  consistently  spurned  federative  relations 
with  one  another.  On  the  contrary,  several  unions  in 
the  railway  field  are  now  affiliated  with  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor,  and  the  past  shows  notable  attempts 
at  industrial  railway  organization,  such  as  Debs'  Ameri- 
can Railway  Union  of  1893- 1894,  and  such  attempts  at 
federation  as  the  United  Order  of  Railway  Employees 
in  1899,  the  Federation  of  American  Railway  Employees 
of  1898  and  1900,  and  the  Cedar  Rapids  Agreement. 
But,  in  spite  of  all  this,  the  group  has  deserved  the  char- 
acterization given  above,  for,  in  the  main,  the  oldest, 
strongest,  most  successful  of  the  railway  unions,  those 
commonly  spoken  of  as  the  Brotherhoods,  have  main- 
tained and  still  maintain  their  strict  trade  character  and 
independence  and  their  trade  union  ideals  and  methods. 
As  representing  the  unalloyed  trade  union  type,  a  brief 
general  account  of  them  in  contrast  with  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  is  most  enlightening  to  anyone  who 
is  trying  to  discover  just  what  unionism  is  and  signifies 
in  contemporary  society. 

There  are  perhaps  a  score  of  unions  whose  work  is 
exclusively  or  mainly  concerned  with  railroading.  In 
common  usage,  however,  the  term  "railway  unions"  or- 
dinarily covers  only  those  engaged  in  moving  freight  and 
passengers  or  maintaining  the  roadway  for  this  move- 
ment. Using  the  term  thus,  the  principal  unions  of  this 
group  are  the  Grand  International  Brotherhood  of  Loco- 
motive Engineers,  the  Order  of  Railway  Conductors, 
the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Firemen,  the  Brother- 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  107 

hood  of  Railway  Trainmen,  the  Order  of  Railway  Teleg- 
raphers, the  Brotherhood  of  Railway  Carmen,  the 
Brotherhood  of  Railway  Trackmen,  the  Switchmen's 
Union  of  North  America,  and  the  Brotherhood  of  Rail- 
way Bridgemen.  As  the  term  Railway  Brotherhoods  is 
ordinarily  used,  however,  it  refers  especially  to  the  en- 
gineers, conductors,  firemen  and  trainmen.  Sometimes 
the  telegraphers  are  included,  but  rarely  the  carmen, 
maintenance  of  way  employees,  or  bridgemen.  What  is 
said  further  in  this  connection  is  to  be  taken  as  referring 
to  the  Brotherhoods  in  the  narrower  sense  of  the  term. 

The  organization  of  the  Engineers  is  typical  of  the 
characteristic  features  of  the  Brotherhoods.  The  units 
of  the  international  are  the  Grand  International  Division, 
which  includes  a  bargaining  and  an  insurance  organiza- 
tion, and  subordinate  units — the  Executive  Committee, 
Merged  General  Standing  Committee  of  Adjustment, 
Standing  General  Committee  of  Adjustment,  Standing 
Local  Committee  of  Adjustment,  Subdivision  or  Lodge, 
and  Legislative  Board.  Supreme  authority  rests  with 
the  Grand  International  Division,  "which  shall  have  ex- 
clusive jurisdiction  over  all  subjects  pertaining  to  the 
Brotherhood,  and  its  enactments  and  decisions  upon  all 
questions  are  the  supreme  law  of  the  Brotherhood,  and 
all  Divisions  and  members  of  the  Order  shall  render  true 
obedience  thereto."  ^  *Tt  shall  also  have  full  power  to 
order  the  expulsion  of  any  member  of  any  Division  and 
in  the  event  of  such  Division  failing  to  comply  with  such 
order,  the  Grand  Chief  Engineer  shall  recall  its  char- 
ter." *     Delegates  to  the  Grand  International  Division 

8  Constitution  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers 
(I9i2),p.  5,  §3. 
*/tid.,  p.  6,  §3. 


io8  TRADE  UNIONISM 

shall  continue  as  such  until  their  successors  are  elected 
and  shall  be  subject  to  the  call  of  the  Grand  Chief  En- 
gineer to  assemble  at  any  time  during  their  term  of  of- 
fice." ^  The  regular  meetings  of  the  Grand  International 
Division  are  triennial.  The  Grand  Chief  Engineer 
"shall  decide  all  controversies  which  may  be  appealed 
from  the  Divisions  .  .  .  and  such  decisions  shall  be  final 
and  conclusive  until  the  .  .  .  triennial  meeting.^  .  .  . 
Factional  disputes  or  individual  injustices  are  settled  by 
the  Grand  Chief  Engineer.  His  decision  is  final  until  the 
next  Grand  International  Division  convention.*^  Any 
subdivision  willfully  violating  any  rule  or  regulation  of 
the  Grand  International  Division  of  the  Brotherhood  of 
Locomotive  Engineers  may  have  its  charter  suspended 
by  the  Grand  Chief  Engineer  until  the  next  meeting  of 
the  Grand  International  Division.^  The  Grand  Chief  En- 
gineer shall  have  full  power  to  inflict  such  suspension  on 
his  judgment  of  violation.^ 

The  standing  General  Committee  of  Adjustments  ex- 
ists on  railway  systems  where  two  or  more  divisions  are 
organized;  the  local  Committee  of  Adjustments  where 
there  is  only  one.  Members  of  the  committee  are  elected 
triennially,  one  representative  with  one  vote  for  each 
division.^'^  General  Committees  of  Adjustments  may  be 
merged  on  any  system  of  roads  into  a  Merged  General 
Committee  of  Adjustments  on  two-thirds  vote  of  mem- 

^  Constitution  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers 
(1912),  p.  13,  §23;  p.  25,  §3. 
^  Ibid.,  p.  7,  §8. 
'  Ibid.,  p.  50,  §§  86,  87. 
« Ibid.,  p.  43,  §  66. 
^Ibid.,  p.  77,  §38. 
^Ubid.,p.  63,  §§i,  2. 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  109 

bers  affected.**  Where  there  are  two  or  more  roads  or 
systems  an  Executive  Committee  of  two  members  for 
each  road  is  elected  by  the  General  Committees  of  Ad- 
justments from  their  members.*^  The  Executive  Com- 
mittee's duty  is  to  adjust  all  matters  referred  to  it 
with  the  officers  of  the  road  or  syndicate  after  the  Grand 
Chief  Engineer  has  exhausted  all  means. *^ 

The  mode  of  adjustment  is  as  follows :  ( i )  the  griev- 
ance goes  to  the  local  or  merged  committee  of  adjust- 
ments which,  with  the  local  officials  of  the  road  or  sys- 
tem, exhausts  all  efforts  at  settlement.**  (2)  The  chair- 
man of  the  general  committee  of  adjustment  may  then 
be  called  upon  to  act  with  the  local. *^  (3)  The  general 
committee  of  adjustments  may  next  take  it  up  and  after 
exhausting  every  means  for  settlement  with  officials  of 
the  road  may  call  on  the  grand  chief  engineer  who  must 
drop  everything  else  and  try  all  honorable  means  to  settle 
the  dispute.*^  Or  (4)  the  executive  committee  may  act, 
and  failing  to  come  to  agreement  with  the  officials  of 
the  system,  may  call  on  the  grand  chief  engineer.*^  Ac- 
tion by  the  grand  chief  engineer  stands  as  law  until  re- 
pealed by  the  committee  or  a  two-thirds  vote  of  the 
membership  involved  or  by  the  grand  international  divi- 
sion. 

Divisions  in  each  state  or  territory  by  two-thirds  vote 
may  form  a  legislative  board  to  convene  at  the  capitol. 
This  board  shall  have  power  to  take  action  on  all  busi- 

»/ft<  p.  65,  §4. 
"  Ibid.,  p.  66,  §  6. 
"/Hci.,  p.  67,  §7. 
"  Ibid.,  p.  70,  §  13. 
15  Ibid.,  p.  70,  §  14. 
"  Ibid.,  p.  71,  §  16. 
'Ubid.^p.  67,  §7. 


no  TRADE  UNIONISM 

ness  of  a  political  nature  wherein  the  interests  of  the 
Brotherhood  of  Lx)comotive  Engineers  are  involved.^* 
Such  legislative  boards  may  elect  representatives  to  act 
with  representatives  of  other  organizations  in  forming 
joint  legislative  boards  with  the  purpose  of  securing  leg- 
islation in  the  interest  of  labor. ^^  The  Locomotive  Engi- 
neers' Mutual  Life  and  Accident  Insurance  Association 
is  a  separate  organization  of  elected  delegates. 

The  functional  type  of  the  Brotherhood  ^^  is  indicated 
by  the  follawing:  "The  interests  of  the  employer  and 
employee  being  coordinate,  the  aim  of  the  organization 
\vill  be  cooperation  and  the  cultivation  of  amicable  rela- 
tions with  the  employer  and  to  submit  questions  of  dif- 
ference to  arbitration  when  an  agreement  cannot  other- 
wise.be  reached,  and  to  guarantee  the  fulfillment  of  every 
contract  made  in  its  name  by  the  use  of  every  power 
vested  in  it.  .  .  .  The  purpose  of  this  organization  shall 
be  to  combine  the  interests  of  Locomotive  Engineers,  ele- 
vate their  social,  moral  and  intellectual  standing;  to 
guard  their  financial  interests,  and  promote  their  .general 
welfare."  ^i 

The  Brotherhoods  rest  on  the  'trade  or  craft  basis,  but 
structurally  they  tend  to  be  more  complicated  than  the 
ordinary  union.  Their  discipline  is  stricter  and  their 
government  more  centralized.  In  general,  it  may  be  said 
of  them  that  their  membership  is  made  up  of  relatively 

^^  Constitution  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Locomotive  Engineers 
(1912),  p.  84,  §1. 

^Ubid.,  p.  85,  §7. 

2°  Compare  with  the  Bridge  and  Structural  Iron  Workers  and 
the  I.  W.  W.  Can  these  three  be  lumped  together?  Can  there 
be  unionism  as  such,  considering  these  differences? 

2^  Preamble  of  the  Constitution  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Loco- 
motive Engineers. 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  in 

skilled,  specialized,  and  highly  paid  workers;  that  they 
are  highly  exclusive;  that  they  are  highly  conservative 
in  their  attitude  and  method;  that  they  refuse  to  join 
with  other  unions  in  coercing  employers ;  that  they  stand 
for  business  methods,  that  is,  collective  bargaining  with 
most  elaborate  machinery,  trade  agreements  mutually 
helpful  to  employers  and  employees,  sacredness  of  con- 
tract, and  no  strikes  if  it  is  possible  to  avoid  them;  that 
they  have  strong  treasuries  which  make  them  powerful 
in  dealing  with  employers;  that  they  stand  for  a  rela- 
tively high  development  of  union  insurance.  As  applied 
to  the  craft  group  but  not  to  the  class,  their  ideals  are 
largely  those  of  the  Knights  of  Labor.  Within  the  craft 
group  they  are  highly  altruistic  and  idealistic.  In  short, 
they  exhibit  no  consciousness  of  a  working  class  and 
working-class  interest.  They  are  middle-class  in  their 
viewpoint,  exclusive,  conservative,  businesslike  and  self- 
reliant.  They  thus  represent  the  essential  characteristics 
of  trade  unionism  as  against  industrial  and  labor  un- 
ionism. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  Railroad  Brother- 
hoods have  succeeded  in  large  measure.  The  causes  of 
their  success  are :  ( i )  the  confining  of  the  scope  of 
the  organization  and  activities  of  economic  interest  to 
the  craft,  where  conditions,  needs,  and  problems  are  com- 
mon to  all  and  common  rules  are  possible ;  avoiding  dis- 
ruptive social,  political,  and  religious  considerations;  (2) 
having  as  the  basis  of  their  membership  a  picked  class  of 
workers  unusually  intelligent  and  skilled;  (3)  the  stress- 
ing of  organization,  and  being  able  to  organize  the  craft 
so  thoroughly  that  there  is  no  need  to  bother  about  un- 
dercutting or  the  establishment  of  the  closed  shop,  in 
order  that  their  rules  may  be  standardized  for  the  entire 


112  TRADE  UNIONISM 

group;  (4)  having  the  membership  under  thorough  con- 
trol by  highly  centralized  authority  and  by  stressing  in- 
surance; (5)  being  moderate,  conservative  in  their  at- 
titude and  demands,  businesslike  in  their  action  (re- 
spect for  contract),  backing  all  this  up  Mrith  a  reserve 
fund  that  allows  them  to  wait;  and  (6)  being  in  an  espe- 
cially strong  strategic  position  where  they  can  paralyze 
the  whole  industrial  process  if  their  demands  are  not 
conceded. 

Granting  then  the  extreme  success  of  the  Brother- 
hoods, and  admitting  that  they  have  practically  solved 
the  union  problem  in  their  field,  can  we  assume  that  this 
type  of  union  would  work  over  the  whole  field  of  in- 
dustry and  solve  the  whole  union  problem  ?  Does  it  fur- 
nish a  way  of  getting  the  benefits  of  unionism  for  the 
workers  most  in  need  of  them,  and  of  doing  away  with 
the  economic  and  social  evils  of  unionism,  in  matters 
of  efficiency,  unhampered  industrial  development,  uni- 
versal opportunities  to  the  workers,  social  order,  and  in- 
dustrial peace? 

The  essential  structural  character  of  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  is  that  of  a  loose  federation  of 
national  and  international  unions,  which  under  stress 
of  circumstances  has  developed  a  great  variety  of  struc- 
tural units  and  relationships;  in  fact,  everything  found 
in  the  history  of  American  unionism.  It  was  organized 
on  the  principle  of  craft  autonomy  ^^  with  loose  federa- 
tion for  the  administration  of  intercraft  union  affairs, 
in  the  belief  that  the  ends  or  functions  of  unionism  could 

"  Constitution  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  art.  II, 
§2. 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  113 

best  be  furthered  by  having  a  union  for  each  craft  ^^  act- 
ing independently  in  its  relations  with  employers,  but  co- 
operating with  other  craft  unions  in  matters  of  more 
general  concern.  As  I  have  said,  the  tendency  has  been 
to  develop  away  from  the  strictly  craft  character  of  un- 
ions. Several  industrial  unions  are  now  members.  There 
has  also  been  a  tendency  for  the  development  of  fed- 
erative forms  and  activities.  The  primitive  structure 
consisted  of  locals,  internationals,  and  the  Federation. 
The  two  other  lines  of  development  are  (i)  the  allied 
trade  union  federation  (i.e.,  the  departments  and  sub- 
ordinate councils)  concerned  with  working  conditions 
mainly;  and  (2)  trades  unions  and  trades  union  federa- 
tions (i.e.,  the  territorial  units,  city  centrals  and  state 
federations)  largely  political  and  uplift  in  their  activities. 
As  at  present  constituted,  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  consists  of  the  general  organization  and,  roughly 
speaking,  seven  general  types  of  subordinate  organiza- 
tion, namely,  the  national  or  international,  the  local,  the 
district  council,  the  local  council,  the  city  central,  the 
state  federation,  and  the  department. 

The  national  or  international  union  is  a  trade  or  indus- 
trial organization  bringing  under  one  jurisdiction  the 
local  unions  connected  with  one  craft  or  industry  in  the 
United  States  and  Canada  and,  in  some  cases,  in  Mexico ; 
e.g.,  the  International  Union  of  United  Brewery  Work- 
men and  the  Glass  Bottle  Blowers'  Association  of  the 
United  States  and  Canada.  In  the  American  Federa- 
tion system  the  national  or  international  is  as  yet  the 
really  strong  and  authoritative  body.  It  is  in  no  sense 
a  federation  of  locals  but  on  the  contrary  creates  its 
local  bodies.    It  exercises  a  really  effective  control  over 

23  Ihid.,  art.  IX,  §  2, 


114  TRADE  UNIONISM 

them  through  the  influence  of  officers  and  organizers, 
charter  revocation  and  financial  assistance,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  practically  independent  of  higher  fed- 
eral authority.  The  American  Federation  of  Labor,  so 
far  as  its  relation  to  the  national  and  international  is 
concerned,  is  still  what  it  was  in  its  inception — a  fed- 
eration of  independent  unions.  Each  national  union  is 
free  to  withdraw  from  the  Federation,  and  it  possesses 
all  the  machinery  for  an  independent  existence.  In 
spite  of  the  centralizing  tendencies  that  have  been  going 
on  in  the  Federation,  the  autonomy  of  trade  unions  is 
carefully  safeguarded  and  every  move  in  the  direction 
of  centralization  is  made  with  the  reservation  that  the 
independence  of  the  national  union  is  in  no  way  infringed 
upon. 

In  general,  the  organic  structure  of  the  internationals 
varies  considerably.  The  simplest  form  is  the  national 
or  international  craft  or  trade  union  with  subordinate 
locals.  There  is  a  tendency  to  develop,  between  the 
local  and  the  national,^*  local,  district  and  state  councils, 
which  are  combinations  of  locals,  and  state  legislative 
boards,  and  executive  committees.  The  industrial  na- 
tionals, such  as  the  United  Mine  Workers,  tend  to  be 
more  complex.  Subordinate  to  the  national  union  is  the 
district  council,  an  interstate  body  corresponding  to  the 
competitive  field,  composed  of  representatives  of  the 
locals  of  the  district.  It  is  responsible  to  the  national 
and  concerns  itself  mainly  with  trade  agreements  and 
working  conditions.  The  subdistrict  council  is  com- 
posed of  delegates  from  the  locals  and  is  responsible  to 
the  district  council.  The  railway  unions  also  tend  to 
develop  a  complicated  system  of  legislative  boards  and 

2*  Cf.  the  Carpenters  and  Joiners, 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  115 

committees  standing  between  the  national  or  international 
union  and  the  locals  or  lodges  and  divisions.  These 
boards  and  committees  are  sometimes  territorial  in  their 
organization  and  supervision.  More  generally,  however, 
they  are  coterminous  with  railway  systems  and  divisions. 
A  clue  to  their  character  is  found  in  the  attempt  to  have 
a  union  body  governing  the  affairs  of  men  working  under 
similar  conditions  and  with  common  interests  to  protect, 
where  common  rules  as  to  wages  and  conditions  of  em- 
ployment can  be  enforced.  Here  the  union  organization 
is  coterminous  with  each  competitive  area.  That  is  to 
say,  whenever  there  is  a  capitalistic  organization  or  unit, 
there  is  the  attempt  to  parallel  it  with  a  labor  organiza- 
tion or  unit,  the  significance  of  which  will  appear  in  the 
study  of  collective  bargaining.  This  means  that  the 
union  organization  is  constantly  developing  to  fit  needs. 
The  tendency  would  be,  when  trusts  enter  the  field,  to 
parallel  the  complicated  trust  organization  with  union 
organization — the  trial  method  again. 

The  general  functions  of  the  national  or  international 
union  are  varied.  Through  its  officers,  organizers  and 
charters,  it  creates  locals  and  intermediate  subordinate 
organizations.  Through  charters  and  constitutional  pro- 
visions it  determines  membership,  and  membership  con- 
ditions and  privileges ;  the  functional  character  of  locals ; 
their  officers  and  duties ;  discipline  of  members  and  gen- 
eral conduct  of  the  affairs  of  the  local.  Through  the 
constitution  it  determines  the  general  economic  policy 
and  methods  of  the  local — formulates  the  general  work- 
ing rules;  sanctions  or  rejects  local  demands  upon  em- 
ployers; determines  the  rule  for  negotiating  agreements 
and  for  the  calling  and  conduct  of  strikes.  Through  the 
constitution  and  officers  it  controls  and  administers  the 


ii6  TRADE  UNIONISM 

general  finance:^  and  insurance  funds  of  the  union.  It 
publishes  the  trade  organ  and  is  the  general  source  of 
the  trade  propaganda  material  and  publicity.  In  short, 
it  is  the  economic  unit  of  unionism  par  excellence.  It 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  all  this  each  national  is 
practically  a  law  to  itself  and  great  variation  occurs. 

The  local  union  might  be  called  the  organic  cell  of 
unionism  as  represented  by  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor.  It  is  to  be  noted,  though,  that  it  no  longer  repre- 
sents the  genetic  and  vital  force  of  unionism.  As  the 
organic  basis  of  unionism,  there  are  three  general  types 
of  the  local.  First,  there  is  the  trade  local  composed  of 
men  all  of  the  same  trade  or  craft.  It  is  the  organic 
basis  of  trade  or  craft  unionism.  It  is  usually  a  small 
body — seven  being  most  generally  fixed  as  a  minimum 
membership — but  it  may  include  all  the  men  of  a  pros- 
perous craft  in  a  large  city,  when  its  membership  may 
run  into  the  hundreds  or  even  thousands.  Such  are  the 
Cigarmakers  of  Chicago  and  Typographical  Union,  No. 
1 6,  of  Chicago.  The  majority  of  the  locals  in  the  Ameri- 
can Federation  of  Labor  are  of  this  type.  It  appears  in 
the  Federation  in  two  distinct  organic  relationships  to 
the  whole.  In  most  cases  it  is  the  local  representative  of 
a  national  or  international  union.  When  no  national  or 
international  of  the  trade  exists,  however,  it  is  the  policy 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  to  organize  trade 
locals  and  affiliate  them  directly  with  itself.  For  ex- 
ample, in  Chicago  are  the  tgg  inspectors',  hair  spinners', 
flat  janitors',  and  suspender  workers'  unions.  Such  un- 
ions are  the  federal  trade  locals.  They  are  the  nursery 
for  national  unions.  When  there  is  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  them  in  any  trade  throughout  the  country,  it  is 
the  policy  of  the  Federation  to  issue  a  charter  for  ap 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  117 

international  of  the  trade  to  which  all  these  will  hence- 
forth be  responsible.  Secondly,  there  is  the  industrial 
local,  the  organic  basis  of  industrial  unionism.  This 
local  includes  all  the  local  workers  in  the  crafts  of  a 
given  industry,  as,  for  example,  all  the  workers  in  a  given 
locality  engaged  in  the  brewery  industry,  including  not 
only  the  men  engaged  in  the  technical  process  of  beer 
brewing,  but  the  engineers,  firemen,  teamsters,  etc.,  em- 
ployed in  and  about  a  brewery.  This  type  of  local  unit 
is  naturally  larger  than  the  trade  or  craft  local,  depend- 
ing on  the  number,  size,  and  pay  roll  of  the  particular 
local  firm  in  the  industry. 

The  antagonistic  character  of  these  two  types  of  locals 
can  readily  be  seen.  Where  they  exist  side  by  side  in 
the  same  town  they  are  bound  to  run  afoul  of  each 
other,  for  the  industrial  union  claims  the  membership 
and  authority  over  some  of  the  men  in  several  definite 
and  organized  crafts  and  also  jurisdiction  over  some  of 
the  work  done  by  several  different  organized  crafts. 
This  not  only  weakens  the  craft  unions  numerically  and 
financially,  but  it  lessens  the  demand  for  their  members, 
the  amount  of  work  they  can  control,  and  their  financial 
strength,  and  prevents  a  great  show  of  force  and  united 
action  on  the  part  of  all  the  members  of  a  craft  in  time 
of  struggle  with  the  employers.  The  craft  unions,  there- 
fore, have  resolutely  fought  the  industrial  union  in  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  but  in  the  long  run  to 
no  purpose.  The  American  Federation  of  Labor  has 
threatened,  suspended,  expelled,  but  in  the  end  has  found 
it  necessary  to  compromise  with  the  industrial  principle. 
As  a  contest  between  business  group  unionism  and  the 
broader  class  principle,  it  is  of  significance  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  unionism.     The   industrial   unions   in  the 


ii8  TRADE  UNIONISM 

American  Federation  of  Labor  are  in  the  minority,  but 
the  tendency  seems  toward  this  basis  of  organization, 
not  so  much  perhaps  through  abandonment  of  the  trade 
or  craft  as  the  lowest  organic  local  basis  as  through  the 
tendency  of  the  craft  units  to  amalgamate  for  certain 
purposes  into  what  are  practically  industrial  local  units, 
like  the  councils  in  the  building  trades. 

Thirdly,  there  is  the  labor  local.  This  is  an  indiscrim- 
inate union  of  men  of  all  trades  and  industries  in  a 
given  locality.  It  is  the  typical  organic  basis  of  the 
Knights  of  Labor.  A  little  consideration  will  show  that 
such  a  union  is  bound  in  general  to  be  ineffective.  The 
men  of  different  trades  will  inevitably  differ  on  matters 
of  ideals  and  practical  policy.  A  consistent  policy  vigor- 
ously supported  is,  therefore,  almost  impossible  to  get 
and  to  maintain.  Hence,  very  largely,  the  impractical 
idealism  and  practical  failure  of  the  Knights  of  Labor. 
Such  unions  tend  to  degenerate  into  debating  societies. 
So  much  was  this  the  case  under  the  old  regime  that 
many  local  unions  now  have  rules  definitely  forbidding 
the  discussion  in  meetings  of  certain  topics,  such  as 
politics  or  religion.  The  labor  local  is  tolerated  in  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  only  where  no  other 
kind  of  organization  is  possible.  In  small  places,  where 
there  are  not  enough  workmen  in  crafts  to  organize  on 
the  craft  basis,  labor  locals  are  formed  and  attached 
directly  to  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  as  "fed- 
eral labor  unions."  It  is  the  pohcy,  however,  to  organ- 
ize craft  unions  in  such  places  as  rapidly  as  a  sufficient 
nucleus  is  available. 

These,  the  trade  or  craft,  industrial  and  labor,  are 
the  distinct  general  types  of  the  local.  There  are,  how- 
ever, possible  variations  from  these.     In  transportation 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  119 

where  the  industry  cannot  be  said  to  have  a  local  habi- 
tation, the  tendency  is  to  make  the  smallest  union  unit 
coterminous  with  the  smallest  division  of  the  transpor- 
tation system.  These  "locals"  are  usually  called  lodges."^ 
In  some  trades  the  local  is  not  the  smallest  unit  of  trade 
organization,  though  it  is  the  smallest  unit  specifically 
legislated  for.  Genetically,  the  union  was  a  shop  club; 
that  is  to  say,  a  meeting  of  the  workers  in  a  shop  or 
factory  to  consider  the  wages  and  conditions  of  employ- 
ment in  the  particular  shop,  and  in  some  unions  shop 
clubs  are  still  a  recognized  part  of  the  union  machinery. 
In  the  printers'  trade  it  is  known  as  the  chapel. 

Functionally,  the  local  is  the  financial  wellspring  of 
unionism.  It  is  practically  the  working  tool  of  the  na- 
tional or  international  in  matters  of  local  import,  mainly 
economic  and  social  in  character,  excepting  publicity  and 
education  for  which  the  national  takes  care.  It  sees 
to  it  that  the  national  union  rules  in  regard  to  wages, 
hours  and  conditions  of  employment  are  observed;  un- 
der constitutional  regulations  it  grants  working  cards 
and  regulates  apprenticeship,  and  it  may  call  and  conduct 
local  strikes ;  its  officers  and  committees  see  as  far  as  pos- 
sible that  the  members  are  kept  employed;  in  certain 
cases  it  negotiates  agreements  with  employers;  it  sees 
that  union  label  goods  are  patronized  and  unfair  houses 
discouraged,  that  the  union  spirit  is  kept  alive  through 
the  display  of  buttons  and  insignia.^®     Its  officers  are 

2®  The  Machinists'  Union  and  some  other  organizations  call 
their  local  unions  "lodges." 

^*  See  Constitution,  Chicago  Photo  Engravers,  No.  5,  art. 
II;  Book  of  Laws  of  International  Typographical  Union,  pp. 
48,  51.  55»  79;  Constitution  of  Machinists,  pp.  26,  27,  30,  35, 
36,  38,  39,  40,  41. 


I20  TRADE  UNIONISM 

supposed  to  exert  an  educative  and  salutary  influence 
over  its  members. 

The  local,  looked  at  as  the  fundamental  and  essential 
trade  union  unit,  is  the  spontaneous  outcome  of  the 
problems  that  face  the  rank  and  file  of  the  workers  and 
the  conditions  under  which  they  work.  Historically  it 
is  thus  the  source  of  ideals  and  policies  and  of  authority, 
that  is,  genetically  and  theoretically  speaking,  unionism 
is  a  spontaneous  and  democratic  creation.  Practically, 
at  the  present  time,  this  is  not  altogether  true.  While, 
historically  speaking,  the  local  is  the  parent  body  and 
the  union  fabric  or  organization  is  the  result  of  integra- 
tion, currently  the  growth  of  unionism  is  for  the  most 
part  just  the  other  way — from  above  downward.  The 
internationals,  in  general,  and  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor  have  each  their  paid  organizers  whose  business 
is  to  go  about  the  country  among  unorganized  workers, 
preach  to  them  the  advantages  of  unionism,  get  them  to 
apply  for  a  charter,  organize  them  and  teach  them  to  run 
their  union  local.  The  local  thus  organized  is  a  product 
of  the  international  or  national,  chartered  by  it,  largely 
directed  by  it,  bound  to  obey  it  in  matters  of  policy  and 
method  or  suflFer  revocation  of  charter,  loss  of  counsel 
and  financial  support  in  time  of  trouble — all  of  which  or- 
dinarily means  speedy  dissolution.  In  spite  of  this  sys- 
tematic development  of  unionism,  there  is  still  a  good 
deal  of  spontaneous  genesis.  Strikes  among  the  unor- 
ganized furnish  a  prime  occasion  for  this  formation. 
When  strikes  occur  and  a  temporary  organization  has 
been  spontaneously  efifected,  organizers,  local  or  general, 
hasten  to  the  place  and  endeavor  to  make  the  organiza- 
tion efifective  and  permanent.  Nevertheless,  a  very  large 
proportion  of  unions  thus  generated  and  affiliated  die 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  1^1 

when  the  immediate  occasion  has  passed.  Men  have  not 
yet  acquired  the  spirit  of  prolonged  self-sacrifice  and 
cooperation,  and  effective  local  leaders  are  not  always 
found. 

Locally  and  economically,  organization  on  distinct 
craft  or  trade  lines  is  found  by  experience  to  have  two 
great  defects  or  weaknesses.  First,  the  separate  craft 
unions  of  a  single  industry  or  of  closely  allied  industries 
come  constantly  into  conflict  over  jurisdiction  and  mem- 
bership. The  result  is  jurisdictional  disputes  in  which 
one  union  may  tie  up  the  whole  job,  throwing  out  of 
employment  all  others,  with  injustice  to  employers  and 
in  some  cases  the  playing  off  of  union  against  union  by 
employers.  Second,  the  separate  craft  union,  dealing 
separately  with  the  employer  of  all,  is  relatively  weak. 
The  consequence  is  the  tendency  of  local  craft  unions 
in  the  same  or  allied  industries  to  form  organizations  to 
govern  interrelations  and  deal  for  all  with  employers. 
These  are  the  local  or  district  councils  such  as  are  found 
in  the  building,  printing,  and  metal  trades.  Such  coun- 
cils are  delegate  bodies  from  the  locals,  the  delegates 
being  ordinarily  local  officers.  Their  functions  are  to 
determine  local  jurisdiction  and  to  discipline  local  un- 
ions for  violations;  to  act  for  the  locals  in  making  local 
agreements  as  to  wages  and  conditions  of  work  with 
employers;  to  act  together  in  disciplining  employers  by 
strike  or  otherwise ;  to  assist  employers  in  securing  and 
maintaining  monopoly  of  the  field. 

Effective  machinery  for  the  purpose  of  the  building 

trades'  council  exists  in  the  board  of  business  agents, 

who  keep  watch  for  each  other  of  violations  of  union 

rules,  formulate  and  present  demands,  etc. 

^     Such  local  councils  have  tended  to  amalgamate  intcv 


122  TRADE  UNIONISM 

state  and  national  councils  to  deal  with  the  interests  of 
allied  trades  country-wide.  There  is  a  distinct  need  for 
them,  since  employers  thus  organize,  and  if  unionism  is 
to  maintain  its  power  and  to  combat  employers  success- 
fully, organization  must  meet  organization.  For  this  rea- 
son and  the  even  more  important  purpose  of  prevention 
and  settlement  of  jurisdictional  disputes,  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  entered  upon  the  logical  and  system- 
atic organization  of  federal  units  of  allied  trades^ — the 
Departments  ^"^ — thus  taking  a  tentative  step  toward  in- 
dustrial organization.  The  Departments  chartered  by 
the  Federation  of  Labor  are  federations  of  allied  na- 
tionals and  internationals  and  serve  as  a  sort  of  clearing 
house  for  difficulties  arising  between  them.  Membership 
in  the  department  is  shifting  and  overlapping — that  is  to 
say,  a  national  union  may  be  affiliated  with  more  than 
one  department,  as  In  the  case  of  the  machinists,  boiler 
makers,  etc.,  who  are  affiliated  with  the  Metal  Trades 
Department,  and  also  with  the  Railroad  Employees'  De- 
partment. The  plan  of  organization  varies;  each  De- 
partment, however,  organizes  federated  trades  locals. 
The  annual  conventions  of  the  Departments  are  bodies 
of  delegates  from  the  internationals. 

The  Building  Trades  Department  -^  includes  nationals 
or  internationals  of  the  asbestos  workers,  bridge  and 
structural  iron  workers,  carpenters,-^  cement  workers,^" 

-^Constitution,  American  Federation  of  Labor,  art.  XV;  and 
Report  of  Proceedings,  30th  Annual  Convention,  American 
Federation  of  Labor,  pp.  54,  57. 

"  Constitution,  Building  Trades  Department,  pp.  J*  4.  9-iO; 
12-13,  20. 

^®  Report  of  the  Proceedings,  American  Federation  of  Labor 
(1915),  PP-  122,  125,  167. 
'-    «<^  Ibid.,  p.  166.  . 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  123 

electrical  workers,  elevator  constructors,  steam  engineers, 
granite  cutters,  hodcarriers,  lathers,  machinists,  marble 
workers,  sheet  metal  workers,  metal  workers,  painters, 
decorators  and  paper  hangers,  plasterers,  plumbers,  roof- 
ers, stone  cutters,  etc.  From  nationals  and  internationals 
one  delegate  for  each  4,000  members  is  sent  to  the  con- 
vention. 

The  Department's  functions  are  in  the  main  the  for- 
mation of  local  organizations;  the  conferring  of  such 
power  and  authority  upon  the  locals  as  may  advance  the 
interest  and  welfare  of  the  building  industry;  the  adjust- 
ment of  trade  disputes  and  the  creation  of  harmonious 
feeling  between  employers  and  employees;  and  securing 
recognition  of  trade  jurisdiction.  The  Department  aims 
to  guarantee  to  the  various  branches  of  the  building  in- 
dustry control  of  such  work  as  rightfully  belongs  to 
them  and  to  which  they  are  justly  entitled.  The  struc- 
ture of  the  Department  includes  the  nationals,  local 
trades  councils,  and  state  trades  councils  organized  in 
states  where  three  or  more  locals  exist. 

The  Railway  Employees  Department  includes  the  na- 
tionals or  internationals  of  the  blacksmiths,  railway 
clerks,  switchmen,  maintenance  of  way  employees,  steam- 
fitters,  railway  telegraphers,  boilermakers,  iron  ship- 
builders and  helpers,  freight  handlers,  etc.  "The  object 
of  this  department  shall  be  to  enhance  the  welfare  of 
the  railroad  employees,  to  aid  in  more  closely  organizing 
all  such  employees,  to  encourage  such  organizations  to 
affiliate  with  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  to  fur- 
ther the  interests  of  employees  by  legislation  and  to  take 
such  action  as  may  be  mutually  agreed  upon  to  protect 
.^the  interests  of  all  concerned,  and  to  recognize  the  jus- 


144  TRADE  UNIONISM 

tice  and  necessity  of  well-defined  jurisdiction.  It  shall 
be  the  aim  to  use  its  good  offices  in  assisting  affiliated 
national  and  international  organizations  in  adjusting  any 
dispute  arising  over  a  question  of  jurisdiction."  The  de- 
partment issues  charters  to  system  federations,  respon- 
sible to  the  Department,  composed  of  one  delegate  from 
each  trade  or  calling  in  the  system  affiliated  with  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor.  Each  system  federa- 
tion may  organize  at  each  division  point  on  the  system 
local  boards,  responsible  to  the  system  federation,  com- 
posed of  one  member  for  each  organization  at  that 
point. ^^  "Each  organization  shall  be  entitled  to  one  dele- 
gate from  each  system  federation"  to  represent  it  in  the 
convention.^^ 

The  Metal  Trades  Department  membership  includes 
the  nationals  or  internationals  of  the  sheet  metal  work- 
ers, blacksmiths,  boilermakers,  iron  ship  builders,  elec- 
trical workers,  steam  engineers,  foundry  workers,  ma- 
chinists, molders,  metal  polishers,  pattern  makers,  stove 
molders,  etc.  The  nationals  or  internationals  are  en- 
titled to  one  delegate  for  each  4,000  members  in  the  De- 
partment convention.  Each  local  council  Is  also  entitled 
to  one.  The  functions  of  the  Department  are  the  forma- 
tion of  local  councils  and  the  conferring  of  such  power 
upon  them  as  will  advance  the  interests  and  welfare  of 
the  industry;  the  adjustment  of  trade  disputes,  the  es- 
tablishment of  more  harmonious  relations  with  employers 
and  the  adjustment  of  jurisdictional  disputes. 

The  Mining  Department  includes   the  United   Mine 

^^  Department  Leaflet,  D.  W.  Roderick,  Secretary-Treasurer. 
^2  Constitution,    Railway    Employees    Department,    American 
•  Federation  of  Labor  (1912),  §  5, 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  125 

Workers,  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners,^^  the 
Amalgamated  Association  of  Iron,  Steel  and  Tin  Work- 
ers, the  International  Association  of  Machinists  and  the 
International  Brotherhood  of  Steam  Shovel  and  Dredge- 
men.  The  delegates  to  the  annual  convention  are  the 
delegates  representing  their  respective  organizations  in 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor  convention.  Each 
delegate  has  one  vote,  but  a  majority  vote  of  each  dele- 
gation Is  required  to  carry  any  proposition.  The  object 
of  the  department  Is  the  greater  unity  of  all  Its  workers 
and  the  furtherance  of  the  principle  that  "an  Injury  to 
one  is  the  concern  of  all."  ^^ 

The  Union  Label  Trades  Department  includes  all  na- 
tional and  international  unions  using  labels,  cards,  or 
buttons  upon  the  product.  Its  functions  are  to  promote 
the  demand  for  label  products  and  union  labor;  to  in- 
vestigate, devise  and  recommend  the  advertisement  of 
label  products ;  to  educate  unions  and  the  public  upon  the 
economic,  social  and  moral  uplift  furthered  by  the  trade 
union  movement;  to  further  the  general  welfare  of  affili- 
ated organizations  and  to  aid  in  the  work  of  organiza- 
tion.    It  organizes  local  departments. 

In  spite  of  all  its  selfishness  of  purpose  and  narrow 
exclusiveness,  trade  or  craft  unionism  inevitably  develops 
a  very  broadening  spirit  of  mutuality  among  the  work- 
ers. The  unionists  come  to  feel  their  economic  oneness 
and  Interdependence  as  a  class.  With  the  dawning  of 
this  consciousness  of  class  character  and  class  Interest 
comes  the  knowledge  that  there  are  many  things  which 

^3  The  Western  Federation  of  Miners  is  now  known  as  the 
"International  Union  of  Mine,  Mill  and  Smelter  Workers." 
^*  Constitution  of  th?  Mining  Department,  §§  2,  4. 


126  TRADE  UNIONISM 

the  workers  as  a  whole  need  that  cannot  be  attaineid  by 
union  for  deahng  merely  with  the  employer.  Common 
needs  which  can  be  satisfied  only  through  universal  union 
for  social  and  political  and  economic  betterment  are 
recognized.  The  recognition  of  these  needs  has  bred  in 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor  general  federative 
units  of  a  functional  character.  These  are,  leaving  aside 
the  Federation  itself,  the  city  central  and  the  state  federa- 
tion.'^ The  functions  of  these  organizations  are  mainly 
political,  legislative  and  social — active  political  effort, 
securing  laws  in  favor  of  the  workers,  furthering  the 
use  of  the  label,  carrying  out  the  boycott,  mediation  be- 
tween unions  and  between  unions  and  employers,  carry- 
ing aid  and  sympathy,  organizing  and  working  for  social 
uplift. 

The  city  central  labor  union  is  a  body  composed  of 
delegates,  one  for  each  hundred  members,  from  the 
locals  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  in  a  given 
city.*® 

^^  See  Report  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Thirty-fifth  Annual 
Convention  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  (1915),  pp- 
61-62. 

^^See  chap.  11,  p  39,  note  4. 

Some  idea  of  the  multiplicity  of  interests  of  a  city  cen- 
tral may  be  gained  from  the  following  topics  which  among 
other  things  obtruded  themselves  into  the  discussion  at  one 
of  the  ordinary  meetings  of  the  Chicago  Federation  of  Labor: 
the  function  and  control  of  public  opinion;  the  character  of 
financiers;  the  inequality  of  justice  as  between  employers  and 
workers  (this  apropos  of  the  indictment  of  about  forty  labor 
leaders  for  extortion,  wrecking  of  property  and  slugging)  ;  en- 
forcement of  emploj'ment  of  union  men ;  fire  protection — the 
two-platoon  system;  policy  of  national  preparedness;  public 
ownership    of    utilities;    protection    against    abuses    by    public 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  12.7 

The  state  federation  is  an  organization  of  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  union  bodies  or  units  of  a  given 
state.  It  is  made  up  of  delegates  from  locals,  city  cen- 
trals and  various  councils.  The  constitution  of  the  Illi- 
nois State  Federation  reads :  "The  object  of  this  federa- 
tion shall  be  the  securing  of  legislation  in  the  interests  of 
organized  labor,  to  promote  the  use  of  the  union  label  and 
the  purchase  of  union  label  goods,  to  make  more  effective 
legally  declared  boycotts  and,  in  general,  to  promote  the 
work  of  labor  organizations."^^  It  investigates  strikes 
and  lockouts  and  gives  information  about  them  and  issues 

utility  corporations;  the  economic  and  social  desirability  of 
blocking  the  proposed  sale  of  the  Automatic  Telephone  Com- 
pany to  the  Bell  Company;  unemployment;  vice;  corruption  of 
city  politics;  use  of  charitable  contributions  by  corporations 
to  prevent  opposition  to  jobbery  by  women's  organizations ; 
government  subsidized  military  training  in  schools;  public 
licenses  for  operators  of  moving  picture  machines;  enforce- 
ment of  purchase  of  union-made  goods;  the  right  of  labor 
organizations;  the  recall  of  state  officials;  the  duty  of  mak- 
ing charitable  contributions  at  home  instead  of  for  the  war 
sufferers  in  Europe;  financial  assistance  to  workers  in  various 
sections  of  the  country;  government  ownership  of  mines  in 
Arizona;  the  initiative  and  referendum;  vested  rights;  the  case 
of  Scott  Nearing  and  the  pernicious  economic  influence  of  uni- 
versities; the  Chicago  school  situation;  the  desirability  of 
a  city  ordinance  to  allow  anyone  arrested  for  petty  crimes  to 
be  released  on  his  own  recognizance  vmtil  the  day  of  trial;  in- 
equality of  law  in  this  connection,  i.e.,  the  poor  man  goes  to 
jail;  the  municipal  court  act;  the  political  power  of  unionism; 
picketing — the  unfairness  of  the  law ;  boycotts  and  unfair  lists ; 
legal  theory — human  versus  property  rights — the  concept  of 
labor  as  a  commodity,  contempt  of  court;  the  antitrust  laws 
and  their  interpretation;  methods  of  securing  local,  state,  and 
national  labor  legislation. 

2"  Constitution  of  Illinois  State  Federation  of  Labor,  art.  2. 


128  TRADE  UNIONISM 

appeals.^^  Every  organization  of  one  hundred  or  less 
shall  be  entitled  to  one  delegate  and  one  additional  for 
every  one  hundred  members  or  major  fraction  thereof. 
All  central  bodies  may  send  five.^^ 

Crowning  and  uniting  this  complexity  of  organic  units, 
industrial  and  territorial,  is  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  itself,  the  universal  industrial  and  territorial  unit. 
Its  founders  declared  themselves  "in  favor  of  the  forma- 
tion of  a  thorough  federation,  embracing  every  trade  and 
labor  organization  in  America,  organized  under  the  trade 
union  system."  ^^^  Its  organic  character  in  this  narrower 
sense  of  the  word  is  quite  simple.  It  consists  of  a  dele- 
gate Jegislative  body — the  convention — which  meets  an- 
nually for  a  two  weeks'  session,  and  the  officers  of  this 
body,  who  hold  over  between  conventions,  and  who  in 
their  several  capacities,  organized  as  an  executive 
committee  or  cabinet,  carry  on  the  executive  and  legisla- 
tive work  of  the  Federation.  In  addition,  the  conven- 
tion usually  appoints  a  number  of  special  committees, 
which  act  between  sessions  in  the  capacity  of  commission- 
ers of  inquiry  and  as  judicial  bodies. 

Sovereignty  in  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  re- 
sides finally  in  the  convention,  to  which  national  unions, 
city  centrals,  state  federations,  federal  labor  unions  and 
local  federal  unions  send  delegates  as  follows :  From 
national  and  international  unions  for  less  than  4,000 
members,  i  delegate;  4,000  or  more,  2  delegates;  8,000 
or  more,  3  delegates;  16,000  or  more,  4  delegates;  32,000 
or  more,  5  delegates,  and  so  on ;  from  central  bodies, 

^^  Constitution  of  Illinois  State  Federation  of  Labor,  art.  2, 
p.  II.  ^^  Ibid.,  p.  3. 

*"  Preamble  of  the  Constitution  of  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor. 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  129 

state  federations,  federal  labor  unions  and  local  unions 
having  no  national  or  international  union,  one  delegate. ^^ 
In  addition,  the  following  fraternal  bodies  are  now  rep- 
resented: The  British  Trades  Union  Congress,  The 
Canadian  Trades  and  Labor  Congress,  The  Woman's 
International  Union  Label  League,  the  National 
Woman's  Trade  Union  League  of  America,  the  Federal 
Council  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  America  and  the 
Farmers'  National  Congress.  All  are  entitled  to  one 
delegate  with  the  exception  of  the  British  Trades  Union 
Congress  and  the  Federal  Council  of  the  Churches  of 
Christ,  which  send  two.^^ 

The  number  of  delegates  sent  by  the  national  and  in- 
ternational unions  ranges  from  one  to  eight.  The  num- 
ber of  delegates  actually  sent  by  these  organizations  is 
not  in  strict  proportion  to  the  membership,  but  legally 
each  delegation  is  entitled  to  cast  a  number  of  votes  in 
this  proportion.  The  United  Mine  Workers,  sending  8 
delegates  in  191 5,  were  entitled  to  3,116  votes;  the 
United  Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners,  sending 
7,  to  1,956;  the  Brotherhood  of  Painters,  Decorators 
and  Paperhangers,  sending  6,  to  753  votes;  each  dele- 
gate voting  his  proportional  number.  This  gives  the  con- 
trol of  the  convention  and  its  policies  absolutely  into  the 
hands  of  the  nationals  and  internationals  and  to  the  few 
big  organizations,  at  that,  no  federal  body  having  more 
than  one  vote.  On  practically  all  ordinary  questions, 
however,  voting  is  by  a  show  of  hands — a  compromise 
which  satisfies  the  smaller  and  federal  organizations,  as 

*^  Constitution  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  art. 
IV,  §  I. 

*^  Report  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Thirty-fifth  Annual  Con- 
vention of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  p.  xv. 


Simplified  and  Artificially  Abstract  Schematic  Rep- 
resentation OF  the  Organization  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor. 

This  simplified  schematic  representation  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  is  artificially 
abstract  to  make  it  possible  to  grasp  the  main  outlines  of 
tlie  scheme.  There  are  many  relations  not  clearly  shown 
even  by  the  constitutions,  and  many  variations  as  between 
national  or  international  unions  because  of  growth  by  the 
trial  method,  all  impossible  to  indicate  here.  There  are, 
however,  to  be  found  on  the  chart : 

1.  The  fundamental  structure  of  craft  local,  national  and 
Federation.  Superimposed  on  this  is  (i),  a  trades  union, 
and  (2),  an  allied  trade  development. 

2.  Local  industrial  unions  united  into  national  industrial 
unions. 

3.  The  territorial  units — city  federations  united  into 
state  federations. 

4.  Locals  directly  affiliated  with  the  Federation  not  suf- 
ficient in  number  to  form  nationals. 

5.  Federal  locals,  i.e.,  labor  unions  in  small  places  where 
there  are  too  few  workers  to  form  craft  locals. 

Locals  of  the  following  unions  are  represented  thus : 

X      United  Association  of  Plumbers  and  Steamfitters  of 

the  United  States  and  Canada. 
O     United  Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners  of 

America. 
□     International   Hodcarriers,    Building   and    Common 

□  Laborers'  Union  of  America. 

International  Brotherhood  of  Blacksmith*. 
^^     International  Typographical  Union. 
CZ3     Switchmen's  Union  of  North  America. 
^V      Suspender  Workers'  Local  Trade  Union. 
^^     United  Mine  Workers  of  America. 
/^     Federal  Labor  Union. 

130 


SIMPLIFIED  REPRESENTATI( 
THE  AMERICAN  EEC 


British  Trades  Union^ 

Congress 
Canadian  Trades  andg^ 

Labor  Congress 
Women's  International/g) 
Union  Label  League.  ^ 


Inter- 
State 
Organ 
izaiions 


State 
Organ- 
izations 


Local 
Bodies 


CHICAGO        I    SPRINGFIELD 

ILLINOIS 


©' 


N  OF  THE  ORGANIZATION  OF 
fRATION  OF  LABOR 

National  Women's  Trade 

Union  League 
Federal  Council  of 
hurches  of  Christ 
mericon  Federation 
Catholic  Societies 
Departments 


National  and 
International 
Unions. 


BUFFALO     PODUNK     NEW  YORK 
NEW  YORK 


System  Fed- 
erations 

Districts 


State  Fed- 
erations 

Sub-Districts 

State. 
Councils 


City 
Centrals 


Local  Boards 
Local  Councils 
District  Councils 

Local  Unions 
Shop  Clubs 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  131 

the  equal  vote  of  states  in  the  Senate  satisfies  the  smaller 
states  of  the  Union.  The  Convention  is,  in  the  main,  a 
body  of  officers  of  the  unions  and  subordinate  federa- 
tions— a  body,  in  other  words,  of  professional  unionists. 
Its  composition,  at  least  as  to  leaders,  does  not  vary 
much  from  year  to  year. 

The  objects  of  the  general  federal  unit  are:  organi- 
zation and  federation;  settlement  of  jurisdictional  dis- 
putes; maintenance  of  peace  and  harmony  among  the 
unions;  enforcement  of  unitary  organization;  mainte- 
nance of  craft  autonomy;  encouragement  of  the  labor 
press  and  the  union  label;  securing  labor's  rights  by 
legislative  and  political  action;  education  and  publicity, 
and  giving  financial  and  moral  assistance  in  strikes.  The 
president,  eight  vice-presidents,  a  treasurer  and  a  secre- 
tary constitute  the  executive  council.  This  council, 
which  is  practically  continuous,  is  the  really  powerful 
initiatory  and  authoritative  body  of  the  Federation. 
Its  duties  are  to  watch  and  initiate  legislation,  organize 
unions,  report  boycotts  for  indorsement,  unify  organiza- 
tions, send  out  speakers,  help  settle  jurisdictional  dis- 
putes, assist  federal  unions,  and  grant  and  revoke  char- 
ters when  ordered  by  the  convention.*^ 

The  actual  strength  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  stated  in  terms  of  its  units  and  individual  mem- 
bership is  about  as  follows  :**  national  and  international 
unions,  iii ;  local  unions,  21,711 ;  local  trade  and  federal 
labor  unions,  705;  city  central  bodies,  717;  state  federa- 

*3  Constitution  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  art. 
IX,  §§  i-io. 

**  Report  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Annual  Convention  of 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor  for  191 6,  p.  47. 


132  TRADE  UNIONISM 

tions,  45 ;  departments,  5 ;  local  department  councils,  417; 
total  membership  for  19 16,  2,072,702. 

The  American  Federation  of  Labor  has  both  succeeded 
and  failed.  The  causes  of  its  success  may  be  explained 
largely  by  its  supremely  adaptable  and  catholic  character, 
made  possible  by  its  nontheoretical,  opportunistic,  trial 
method  and  ideals,  and  its  loose  organization.  It  is  thus 
sufficiently  broad  and  elastic  to  have  a  place  within  it- 
self for  every  form  and  type  of  organization — structur- 
ally and  functionally — that  has  arisen  and  proved  itself 
effective  in  the  history  of  American  unionism.  It  has 
found  a  place  and  function  within  itself  for  the  trade 
union,  the  trades  union  (city  central  and  state  federa- 
tion), the  labor  union,  the  industrial  union,  and  the 
various  transitional  forms;  for  business  unionism,  up- 
lift unionism,  radical  or  revolutionary  unionism  and 
predatory  unionism.  It  is  loosely  enough  organized  to 
allow  of  every  variation  of  centralization  and  discipline 
which  the  particular  needs  and  conditions  warrant.  For 
example,  there  is  centralization  and  strong  discipline  of 
national  unions  where  conditions  demand  them  and  de- 
centralization and  weak  discipline  of  federal  forms 
where  needs  and  jealousies  exist.  It  is  theoretically  and 
organically  elastic  enough  to  allow  scope  to  the  principle 
of  change  and  growth,  and  thus  to  the  adoption  and  crea- 
tion of  new  forms  and  the  assumption  of  new  functions 
as  developing  conditions  demand  them,  such  as  system 
federations,  departments,  and  its  political  program.  It 
thus  reflects  in  a  remarkable  way  the  changing  conditions, 
needs,  problems,  and  methods  of  the  workers  within  the 
field  of  its  operation.  Within  this  field  it  reflects  pretty 
accurately — subject  of  course  to  the  law  of  retardation 
'^th?  character  of  capitalistic  organizatiop,  that  is,  th^ 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  133 

degree  of  craft-wise  and  industrial-wise  business  organi- 
zation and  the  idealism  and  materialism,  the  radicalism 
and  conservatism,  the  mutuality  and  selfishness,  of  the 
workers.  In  short,  it  pretty  accurately  reflects  within 
the  field  of  its  operation  the  degree  of  unity,  and  of 
community  of  spirit,  the  extent  of  common  problems, 
ideals  and  conditions  of  the  workers.  It  has  always 
made  everything  else  secondary  to  the  supreme  need  of 
the  workers  in  terms  of  immediate  results,  or,  as  Mr. 
Gompers  says,  "more,  more,  more,  now,"  in  the  form 
of  higher  wages,  shorter  hours,  better  working  condi- 
tions here  and  now.  In  other  words,  its  prime  aim  is 
"to  deliver  the  goods."  And  finally,  it  has  had  extraor- 
dinary fortune  in  the  continuity  and  character  of  its 
leadership.  Mr.  Gompers  has  been  at  the  helm  since 
1886,  except  for  one  year,  1894;  it  has  had,  therefore,  a 
continuous  policy  and  has  been  delivered  from  the  strug- 
gle for  leadership.  In  short,  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor  is  an  organization  structurally  and  function- 
ally of  such  a  character  that,  while  guaranteeing  to  each 
craft  autonomy  in  trade  affairs,  it  can  unite  them  on 
economic  grounds,  smooth  out  their  differences,  and 
gradually  educate  them  to  closer  relationship. 

But  has  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  succeeded? 
( I )  Though  it  claims  to  represent  the  working  class  and 
aims  at  universal  organization,  yet  in  more  than  thirty 
years  it  has  succeeded  in  organizing  less  than  ten 
per  cent  of  the  workers.  (2)  It  lacks  the  adherence  of 
some  of  the  strongest  and  most  successful  unions,  such 
as  the  Railway  Brotherhoods.  (3)  It  has  found  itself 
unable  to  make  headway  or  maintain  its  position  in  great 
trust-controlled  industries.  (4)  It  has  proved  unequal  to 
its  adversary  in  its  struggle  against  strong  employers' 


134  TRADE  UNIONISM 

associations.  (5)  It  has  failed  generally  to  organize  and 
help  the  unskilled  workers.  (6)  It  has  not  been  able 
to  prevent  altogether  predatory  combinations  between 
employers  and  unions  to  the  detriment  of  other  organ- 
ized workers.  (7)  It  has  failed  thus  far  to  solve  the 
problem  of  jurisdictional  disputes  involving  destruction 
alike  of  the  welfare  of  the  workers,  the  employers,  and 
the  public.  (8)  It  has  failed  to  secure  unanimity  and 
general  support  of  its  broad  welfare  policies,  for  example, 
the  use  of  union  labeled  goods.  (9)  It  seems  impotent 
against  scientific  management  and  advanced  management 
with  its  progressive  specialization  and  destruction  of  the 
very  essence  of  the  craft  foundation  of  unionism. 

After  having  considered  the  general  character  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor  and  reviewed  its  successes 
and  failures,  can  we  say  that  it  presents  the  key  to  the 
solution  of  the  union  problem?  Does  it  furnish  a  means 
of  getting  the  benefits  of  unionism  for  the  workers  most 
in  need  of  them,  and  of  solving  the  problems  of  effi- 
ciency, unhampered  industrial  development,  universal 
opportunity  to  the  workers,  social  order  and  industrial 
peace?  In  so  far  as  it  has  failed  in  this  connection, 
what  are  the  prime  causes  of  its  failure?  There  appear 
to  be  two  which  stand  out  clearly:  First,  under  the 
present  system  of  capitalistic  enterprise  based  on  machine 
industry,  no  common  standards  of  right,  rights,  and 
justice  exist  which  can  be  appealed  to  for  securing  work- 
ing class  betterment.  Therefore,  the  general  betterment 
of  the  workers'  condition  through  unionism  requires  a 
general  organization  of  the  workers  superior  in  power 
to  the  employers.  Second,  no  working  class  power  su- 
perior to  the  employers  can  be  developed  in  pursuit  of 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  135 

the  ideal  of  immediate  results  secured  by  bargaining, 
because  under  the  capitalistic  system  immediate  better- 
ment can  be  secured  by  the  workers  through  bargaining 
only  by  control  and  manipulation  of  the  labor  supply. 
This  means  that  the  pursuit  of  the  ideal  must  immediately 
develop  the  selfish  and  monopolistic  group  feeling.  This 
effectually  bars  out  the  attainment  of  working  class 
solidarity  and  power,  for  it  causes  the  stronger  unions 
to  hold  aloof,  pits  the  organized  against  the  unorganized, 
and  causes  a  constant  desertion  of  the  brains  of  the 
movement  to  the  employers.  In  short,  if  the  failure  of 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor  could  be  simmered 
down  to  a  single  phrase,  it  would  be  "lack  of  practical 
idealism."  It  is  another  question  whether  this  idealism 
— the  unselfish  class  spirit — can  be  developed  under 
present  conditions  where  the  mass  of  the  workers  are 
barred  out  from  taking  a  broad  and  long-time  view  of 
life's  affairs  by  the  cold  fact  that,  as  things  are,  their 
immediate  conditions  of  life  do  depend  upon  the  labor 
supply  and  they  can  have  absolutely  no  guarantee  of  the 
future. 

Bibliography 

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Journals:  Locomotive  Engineers'  Journal,  Locomotive  Fire- 
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Bliss.  Encyclopedia  of  Social  Reform,  "Railway  Brother- 
hoods." 


136  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Bulletin  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  98  (1912): 
"Mediation  and  Arbitration  of  Railway  Labor  Disputes 
in  the  United  States,"  by  C.  P.  Neill,  pp.  1-63. 

Cease,  D.  L,  "Organization  of  Railway  Employees,"  Out- 
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Cunningham,  E.  J.  "Two  Views  of  the  Railroad  Ques- 
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104:289-302  (1909). 

Frick,  F.  L.     The  Life  of  Railway  Men. 

Hollander  and  Barnett,  Studies  in  American  Trade 
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Railway  Unions,"   (J.  B.  Kennedy), 

McNeill,  Geo,  E.  The  Labor  Movement,  chap,  XII, 
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821-838,  847,  852-857  (1901). 

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Woman's  International  Union  Label  League  and  Trades 
Union  Auxiliary,  Etc. 

Convention  Proceedings:  Reports  of  Proceedings  of  An- 
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Departments,  Nationals  and  Internationals,  State  Fed- 
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Journals:  The  American  Federationist,  Weekly  News  Let- 
ter, the  journals  of  the  Nationals  and  Internationals. 

Official  Directories. 

General  Propaganda  Leaflets: 
The  A.  F.  of  L.,  A  Few  of  Its  Declarations. 
The  A.  F.  of  L.,  Aims  and  Objects. 


PRESENT  UNION  GROUPS  137 

The  A.  F.  of  L.  Endeavors  to  Unite  All  Classes  of  Wage- 
workers. 

The  American  Labor  Movement,  Its  Make-up,  Achieve- 
ments and  Aspirations.    Gompers,  Samuel. 

The  Eight-hour  Workday.    Gompers,  Samuel. 

The  Economic  and  Social  Importance  of  the  Eight-hour 
Movement.    Gunton,  Geo.,  Eight-hour  Series,  No.  2. 

The  Eight-hour  Primer,  The  Fact,  Theory  and  the  Argu- 
ment. McNeill,  Geo.  E.,  Eight-hour  Series,  No.  i 
(1899). 

Hail  to  Labor. 

Has  the  Nonunionist  a  Right  to  Work  How,  When,  and 
Where  He  Pleases?     Foster,  Frank  K.   (1904). 

History  and  Philosophy  of  the  Eight-hour  Movement. 
Danryid,  Lemuel,  Eight-hour  Series,  No.  3. 

How  to  Form  a  Trade  Union  or  Federal  Labor  Union. 

Industrial  Unionism  in  Its  Relation  to  Trade  Unionism, 
Rochester  Convention  (1912). 

Legal  Rights  of  Workingmen,  Argument  Before  the  Ju- 
diciary Committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
59th  Cong.  (1906).    Spelling,  Thos.  C. 

Men  of  Labor,  Lovers  of  Human  Liberty. 

Open  Shop  Editorials.     Gompers,  Samuel. 

Organized  Labor,  Its  Struggles,  Its  Enemies,  and  Its 
Fool  Friends. 

Philosophy  of  Trade  Unions.    Lum.    Dyer,  D.  (1892). 

The  Safety  of  the  Future  Lies  in  Organized  Labor. 
Lloyd,  Henry  D.  (1893). 

St.  Louis  Exposition,  Exhibit  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor  (1904). 

Some  Reasons  for  Chinese  Exclusion. 

Textbook  of  Labor's  Political  Demands,  The  Executive 
Council  of  the  A,  F.  of  L.  (1906). 

The  Union  Label,  Its  History  and  Aims,  Prize  Essays. 

Wageworkers  of  America  Unite. 

The  Executive  Council  and  Gompers,  Samuel. 


138  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Why  Central  Labor  Unions  Should  Be  a  Part  of  the  A. 
F.  of  L. 

Why  We  Unite. 

Adams  and  Sumner.    Labor  Problems,  pp.  219-223. 

Aldrich,  Morton  A.  "The  American  Federation  of  La- 
bor," American  Economic  Association,  Economic  Studies, 
vol.  3,  pp.  213-266  (1898). 

Bliss.  Encyclopedia  of  Social  Reform,  "The  American 
Federation  of  Labor." 

Burke,  W.  M.  The  History  and  Functions  of  Central  La- 
bor Unions. 

Carlton,  F.  T.  The  History  and  Problems  of  Organised 
Labor,  pp.  74-82. 

"Gompers,  the  Man  Between  the  Two  Millstones,"  Cur- 
rent Literature,  48:23  (1910). 

Hollander  and  Barnett.  Studies  in  American  Trade 
Unionism,  chap.  XII.  The  Knights  of  Labor  and  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  Wm.  Kirk. 

Kirk,  Wm.  National  Labor  Federations  in  the  United 
States. 

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bor Federation  in  the  United  States." 

WoLMAN,  Leo.  "Extent  of  Labor  Organization  in  the 
United  States,"  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  XXX, 
p.  486  (1916). 

Weyl,  W.  E.  "Samuel  Gompers,  Representative  of  Ameri- 
can Labor,"  Review  of  Reviews,  31  '.44-47  (1905). 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  INDUSTRIAL  WORKERS  OF  THE  WORLD  AND 
REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM 

The  American  public  has  been  frightened  by  the  im- 
pressionist school  of  reporters  and  magazine  writers  into 
vital  misconception  and  tremendous  overestimate  of  the 
power  and  significance  of  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the 
World.  This  is  the  one  outstanding  fact  revealed  by 
the  eighth  annual  convention  of  that  organization  held 
in  Chicago  late  in  September,  191 3. 

The  first  significant  fact  revealed  by  this  convention, 
and  by  the  whole  history  of  the  I.  W.  W.  as  well,  is  that 
this  body,  which  claims  as  its  mission  the  organization 
of  the  whole  working  class  for  the  overthrow  of  capi- 
talism, is  pathetically  weak  in  effective  membership  and 
has  failed  utterly  in  its  efforts  to  attach  to  itself  perma- 
nently a  considerable  body  of  men  representative  of  any 
section  of  American  workers. 

In  spite  of  eight  years  of  organizing  effort  and  un- 
paralleled advertisement,  the  official  roll  of  the  conven- 
tion indicated  that  its  present  paid-up  membership^  en- 
titled to  representation  does  not  much  exceed  14,000  men, 
while  the  actual  constitutional  representation  on  the  con- 
vention floor  was  probably  less  than  half  that  number. 
Nor  was  there  anything  to  make  it  appear  that  this  was 
regarded  by  the  leaders  or  members  as  an  exceptional 
or  disappointing  showing.    The  fact  is,  impossible  as  it 

^  November,  1913. 

139 


I40  TRADE  UNIONISM 

may  seem  to  those  who  have  read  the  recent  outpouring 
of  alarmist  literature  on  the  subject,  that  this  number 
probably  comes  near  to  representing  the  maximum,  per- 
manent, dues-paying  membership  at  any  time  connected 
with  the  organization.  For  notwithstanding  extravagant 
statements  made  in  the  past  and  a  present  claim  of  an 
enrollment  approximating  100,000,^  it  is  admitted  by  the 
highest  official  of  the  Industrial  Workers  that  up  to  the 
time  of  the  Lawrence  strike  the  membership  never 
reached  10,000,  the  highest  yearly  average  being  but 
6,000;  and  the  convention  debates  indicated  clearly  that 
the  great  bulk  of  those  enrolled  during  that  strike  and 
in  the  succeeding  period  of  unusual  agitation  and  ac- 
tivity have  retained  no  lasting  connection  with  the  organi- 
zation. It  was  shown  that  the  effective  force  of  the 
union  at  Lawrence  is  already  spent. ^     The  representa- 

2  The  actual  membership  of  the  I.  W.  W.  is  unknown  even 
to  the  officials.  The  records  of  the  general  office  show  an 
average  paid-up  membership  for  the  year  of  14,310.  It  is  es- 
timated that  local  and  national  bodies  have  an  additional  dues- 
paying  membership  of  25,000  on  which  no  per  capita  tax  has 
been  paid  to  the  general  organization,  and  that  there  is,  be- 
sides, a  nominal  non-dues-paying  enrollment  of  from  50,000  to 
60,000.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that  100,000  or  more  men  have 
had  I.  W.  W.  dues  cards  in  their  possession  during  the  past 
five  years.  How  much  of  this  outlying  membership  fringe 
is  now  bona  fide  it  is  impossible  to  estimate.  Some  part  of  it 
represents  members  out  of  work  or  on  strike  and  therefore 
temporarily  unable  to  pay  dues.  Even  this  portion,  however,  is 
organically  ineffective  and  is  constantly  dropping  out.  We 
seem  justified,  therefore,  in  taking  the  actual  paid-up  member- 
ship as  the  nearest  approximation  to  the  permanent  effective 
strength  of  the  organization. 

^The  membership  now  claimed  at  Lawrence  is  700.  After 
the  strike  it  was  said  to  be  14,000. 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  141 

tives  of  the  whole  textile  industry,  indeed,  cast  but  31 
votes  in  the  convention,  developing  the  fact  that  the  total 
paid-up  membership  in  this  line  of  work  probably  does 
not  now  exceed  1,600,^  and  a  communication  was  re- 
ceived from  one  of  the  local  unions  still  remaining  at 
Lawrence  complaining  of  the  methods  of  the  organiza- 
tion and  threatening  adhesion  to  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor.  At  Akron,  again,  where  during  the  rub- 
ber strike  early  this  year  apparently  more  than  6,000 
were  added  to  the  roll,  the  convention  vote  cast  indicated 
a  present  membership  of  150  or  thereabouts,  and  state- 
ments on  the  floor  revealed  the  fact  that  most  of  those 
who  joined  at  the  time  of  the  strike  did  not  retain  official 
connection  with  the  union  long  enough  to  pay  the  second 
assessment  of  dues.^ 

Evidence  to  the  same  general  effect  might  be  multi- 
plied almost  Indefinitely.  Everywhere  the  history  of  the 
organization  has  shown  this  same  inability  to  maintain 
a  stable  and  growing  membership.  There  are  without 
doubt  reasons  for  this  fact  apart  from  the  special  char- 
acter and  methods  of  the  I.  W.  W.,  but  these  are  beside 
the  point.  The  point  is  that  by  reason  of  lack  of  suffi- 
cient membership  this  body  is  and  seems  destined  to  be 
utterly  inadequate  to  the  tasks  which  it  has  set  itself  to 
accomplish.  It  aims  to  educate  and  organize  the  work- 
ing class  and  claims  to  have  discovered  the  effective  ideals 
and  organic  basis  to  this  end,  but  during  eight  years  of 
strenuous  effort  it  has  succeeded  In  reaching  and  hold- 

•*  By  constitutional  provision  one  vote  is  allowed  in  the  con- 
vention for  every  50  members  or  major  fraction  thereof. 

5  At  the  time  of  the  strike  the  local  purchased  11,000  dues 
stamps  from  the  general  office.  A  membership  of  2,000  is 
claimed  at  present. 


142  TRADE  UNIONISM 

ing  less  than  one  in  2,000  of  the  workers  of  this  coun- 
try alone.  Its  first  great  organic  tasks,  if  it  is  to  attain 
this  end,  are  the  displacement  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor,  the  railway  brotherhoods,  and  the  Socialist 
party,  but  it  has  not  been  able  to  organize  effectively  for 
these  purposes  a  body  of  men  equal  to  one  per  cent  of 
the  membership  of  the  American  Federation  alone,  or  to 
one-sixtieth  of  those  who  act  with  the  Socialist  party; 
it  proposes  a  united  and  successful  direct  industrial  as- 
sault upon  capitalism,  but  it  has  not  thus  far  drawn  to 
itself  on  this  basis  a  permanent  enrollment  equal  in  num- 
ber to  the  employees  of  many  a  single  capitalist  enter- 
prise. Plainly  no  further  proof  is  needed  that  those 
who  are  attached  to  the  present  order  have  nothing  now 
to  fear  from  I.  W.  W.-ism  judged  from  the  standpoint 
of  mere  numbers  and  power  of  appeal  to  the  great  body 
of  the  working  class. 

But  numerical  weakness  is  not  after  all  the  chief  handi- 
cap of  the  I.  W.  W.  in  its  struggle  for  positive  achieve- 
ment. This  convention  secondly  brought  into  clearest 
relief  the  fact  that  this  feeble  body  is  in  a  state  of  or- 
ganic chaos  as  the  result  of  apparently  irreconcilable  in- 
ternal conflict,  and  the  history  of  the  organization  makes 
it  appear  that  this  state  of  affairs  is  chronic  and  in- 
evitable. The  conflict,  the  keynote  of  I.  W.  W.  history, 
was  waged  in  the  present  convention  under  the  guise  of 
centralization  versus  decentralization.  It  is  at  present, 
objectively,  a  contest  virtually  between  the  East  and  the 
West.  The  so-called  decentralizers,  mainly  westerners, 
sought  in  the  convention  by  every  conceivable  means  to 
cut  down  the  power  and  authority  of  the  central  govern- 
ing body.  This  central  authority  already  had  been  re- 
duced almost  to  a  shadow.     As  the  result  of  previous 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  143 

phases  of  the  contest  the  office  of  general  president  had 
been  aboHshed ;  the  executive  board  had  been  placed  un- 
der control  of  the  general  referendum  which  could  be 
initiated  at  any  time  and  on  all  subjects  by  ten  local 
unions  in  three  different  industries,  while  its  efficiency 
had  been  minimized  by  inadequate  financial  support ;  and 
the  locals  had  become  to  all  intents  and  purposes  auton- 
omous bodies.  But  all  this  has  brought  no  permanent 
satisfaction  to  the  decentralizing  faction.  Its  ultimate 
ideal  apparently  is,  and  has  been  from  the  beginning,  not 
"one  big  union"  but  a  loosely  federated  body  of  com- 
pletely autonomous  units,  each  free  to  act  in  time  and  in 
manner  as  Its  fancy  dictates,  subject  to  no  central  or 
constitutional  guidance  or  restraint — in  short,  a  body 
of  local  units  with  purely  voluntary  relationships  gov- 
erned in  time,  character,  and  extent  of  cooperation  by 
sentiment  only. 

Actuated  by  this  ideal,  the  decentralizers  conducted  in 
the  recent  convention  a  twelve  days'  assault  upon  what 
remained  of  central  power.  They  attempted  to  abolish 
the  general  executive  board;  to  paralyze  the  general  or- 
ganization by  minimizing  Its  financial  support ;  to  abolish 
the  convention  and  provide  for  legislation  by  means  of 
the  general  referendum  only;  to  place  the  official  organ- 
izers under  the  direct  control  of  the  rank  and  file;  to  re- 
duce the  general  officers  to  the  position  of  mere  clerks, 
functioning  only  as  corresponding  intermediaries  between 
the  local  organizations;  and  by  other  means  to  give  to 
each  of  these  local  bodies  complete  autonomy  in  matters 
of  organization,  policy,  action,  and  financial  control.  It 
matters  little  that  at  this  particular  convention  the  cen- 
tralizing faction,  mainly  by  virtue  of  superior  parlla- 
Tnentary  tactics,  succeeded  in  staving  off  the  attacks  of 


144  TRADE  UNIONISM 

its  opponents  and  in  saving,  at  least  until  the  matter  goes 
to  referendum,  the  present  form  of  the  organization. 
The  significant  facts  are  that  the  same  factional  strife 
has  existed  from  the  moment  when  the  I.  W.  W.  was 
launched ;  and  that  it  apparently  is  bound  to  exist  as  long 
as  the  organization  lasts;  that  the  decentralizing  forces, 
though  often  defeated  formally,  have  in  practice  suc- 
ceeded and  seem  bound  to  continue  to  succeed  in  work- 
ing their  will  inside  the  organization,  with  the  inevitable 
result  of  disintegration  and  organic  chaos.  Evidence 
of  this  is  everywhere  apparent.  During  the  past  year 
ninety-nine  locals,  ignored  and  uncared  for,  went  out  of 
existence  entirely;  in  New  York  the  relatively  strong 
local  assembly  is  working  at  cross-purposes  with  the  cen- 
tral organization  and  successfully  defying  its  power;  in 
the  West,  locals  are  being  formed  and  managed  on  extra- 
constitutional  lines;  throughout  this  part  of  the  country 
members  are  being  expelled  by  one  local  and  straight- 
way admitted  by  another;  so  diverse  are  the  local  Ideals 
and  so  uncertain  the  means  of  intercommunication  that 
in  practice  it  has  been  found  generally  impossible  to  get 
ten  locals  into  the  requisite  harmony  to  Initiate  a  referen- 
dum; sabotage  is  being  openly  practiced  by  the  local 
membership  against  the  organization  itself  and  has  re- 
cently resulted  in  the  suspension  of  one  of  its  two  official 
organs,  the  Industrial  Worker;  in  fact,  it  is  freely  ad- 
mitted and  apparently  is  looked  upon  with  satisfaction 
by  the  decentralizing  faction,  that  there  are  at  present 
fifty-seven  varieties  of  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World. 
The  net  result  is  that  the  I.  W.  W.,  instead  of  being 
the  grim,  brooding  power  which  it  is  pictured  in  popular 
imagination.  Is  a  body  utterly  Incapable  of  strong,  effi- 
cient, united  action  and  the  attainment  of  results  of  a 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  145 

permanent  character;  a  body  capable  of  local  and  spas- 
modic effort  only.  True,  it  has  a  constitution  which 
provides  in  a  most  logical  manner  for  the  welding  of 
the  workers  into  a  great,  effective,  organic  body.  But 
this  constitution  is  a  mere  mechanical  structure  in  the 
interstices  of  which  organic  accretions  have  here  and 
there  settled.  The  little  organic  bodies  are  sovereign, 
each  of  their  members  is  a  sovereign,  and  to 
both  member  and  organic  unit  the  constitution  is 
a  thing  subject  to  their  will.  The  fact  is  that  the  I.  W. 
W.  is  not  an  organization  but  a  loosely  bound  group  of 
uncontrolled  fighters.  It  is  a  symptom  if  you  will,  and 
in  that  alone,  if  anywhere,  lies  its  present  social  signifi- 
cance. But  decentralized  as  it  is  to  the  extent  of  organic 
dissipation,  atomistic  and  rent  by  bitter  factional  strife, 
it  has  no  present  power  of  general  persistent  or  construc- 
tive action. 

The  I.  W.  W.,  however,  is  not  only  weak  in  member- 
ship and  organic  unity ;  it  possesses,  further,  no  financial 
resources  even  in  a  slight  degree  adequate  to  advance  and 
maintain  its  proposed  organization  of  the  working  class 
or  to  carry  forward  any  consistent  assault  on  capitalism ; 
and,  moreover,  it  has  shown  itself  incapable  of  control- 
ling for  its  main  purposes  even  the  financial  resources 
which  it  does  possess.  Advocates  of  the  movement,  it 
is  true,  minimize  the  importance  of  mere  money  in  the 
kind  of  warfare  which  they  propose  to  conduct.  This 
is  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  pregnant  ideas  of  the  direct 
actionists.  They  do  not  propose,  it  is  said,  like  the 
Socialists,  to  support  a  horde  of  parasitic  labor  poli- 
ticians, nor,  like  the  trade  unions,  to  out-wait  the  capi- 
talist. They  will  force  the  capitalists  to  abdicate  by  the 
simple  process  of  making  it  unprofitable  for  them  to  con- 


146  TRADE  UNIONISM 

duct  industry.  And  this  can  be  done  practically  without 
funds — where  it  will  suffice — simply  by  keeping  the 
worker's  hands  in  his  pockets;  where  this  will  not  pro- 
duce the  desired  result,  by  striking  on  the  job.  I  do 
not  purpose  in  this  connection  to  enter  into  any  discus- 
sion of  the  theory  of  direct  action.  All  that  I  wish  to  do 
is  to  point  out  the  fact  that  much  of  the  present  weak- 
ness of  the  I.  W.  VV.  is  due  to  financial  want  and  a  con- 
stitutional inability  to  control  the  actual  financial  re- 
sources at  hand.  Time  after  time  the  I.  W.  W.  has 
been  obliged  to  let  slip  favorable  opportunities  for  or- 
ganization and  has  lost  local  bodies  because  it  could  not 
furnish  the  carfare  and  meal  tickets  necessary  to  send  the 
gospel  to  the  workers  groping  in  darkness.  Time  after 
time  it  has  seen  promising  demonstrations  collapse  and 
the  workers  drift  away  from  the  point  of  contest  and 
from  its  control  because  it  could  not  finance  organizers 
and  supply  food  and  lodging  to  tide  over  the  period  of 
temporary  hardship.  The  whole  experience  of  the  or- 
ganization has,  in  fact,  proved  that,  short  of  a  condition 
of  general  and  desperate  distress,  progressive  and  per- 
manent working-class  organization  requires  ready  and 
continuous  financial  support.  And  here  lies  the  most 
vital  error  in  the  practical  theory  and  calculations  of  the 
I.  W.  W.  The  American  workmen  as  a  body  are  not, 
and  are  not  likely  to  be,  in  a  condition  of  general  and 
desperate  distress.  It  is,  therefore,  to  the  unskilled  and 
casual  laborers  alone  that  the  I.  W.  W.  can  bring  home 
its  appeal  and  to  these  only  that  it  can  look  for  the  funds 
to  put  through  its  organizing  projects.  It  is  this  chronic 
financial  distress  that  more  than  anything  else  has  caused 
the  dissipation  of  its  membership  after  each  of  its  bril- 
liant but  spasmodic  efforts, 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  147 

The  case  is  made  more  hopeless  by  the  inability  of  the 
organization  to  control  the  little  financial  power  it  can 
command.  This  lack  of  financial  control  is  another  out- 
come of  the  decentralizing  mania  which  grips  the  mem- 
bership. The  average  local  has  not  developed  the  ability 
to  conserve  its  own  resources.  Rather  than  support  the 
central  authority  and  submit  to  its  financial  management, 
the  local  suffers  its  funds  to  be  dissipated  by  incompetent 
members  or  stolen  by  dishonest  officials.  Nothing  was 
more  striking  in  the  recent  convention  than  the  stories 
of  local  financial  losses.  *'A11  down  through  the  line," 
said  one  delegate,  "we  have  had  experience  with  secre- 
taries who  absconded  with  funds."  "No  less  than  three 
have  done  the  same  thing  [in  our  local],"  was  the  testi- 
mony of  another.  This  has  happened  three  times  to  one 
local  in  one  year  according  to  a  third  statement.  In- 
deed, so  loose  is  the  local  financial  control  and  the  gen- 
eral interrelationship  of  organic  units,  especially  in  the 
western  country,  that  there  appears  to  exist  a  body  of 
circulating  professional  agitators  who  make  it  their  busi- 
ness to  go  from  locality  to  locality  for  the  sole  purpose 
of  getting  themselves  elected  to  the  treasurer's  office  and 
absconding  with  the  funds.  The  local  unions  do  not 
seem  to  be  in  sufficiently  close  touch  to  ferret  out  the 
malefactors  and  check  the  practice,  nor  will  they  heed  the 
warnings  of  the  general  office.  Indeed,  in  some  locals 
the  feeling  seems  to  prevail  that  the  local  secretary  is 
entitled  to  what  he  can  make  away  with.  Such  are  the 
financial  conditions  in  the  organization  which  claims  to 
have  the  only  means  of  opposing  to  the  capitalist  class 
a  solid  and  effective  organization  of  the  workers,  and 
asserts  that  it  is  training  the  workers  for  the  task  of  re- 
organizing and  managing  the  industries  of  the  country. 


148  TRADE  UNIONISM 

From  what  has  already  been  said  it  might  readily  be 
inferred  that  the  I.  W.  W.  would  be  incapable  of  success- 
ful general  assault  on  the  present  social  and  industrial 
organization  or  of  any  effective  reconstructive  effort, 
even  though  it  should  succeed  in  greatly  enlarging  its 
membership,  reconciling  its  factions,  and  overcoming  its 
financial  difficulties.  Such  a  conclusion  in  fact  seems  am- 
ply warranted.  It  rests  on  a  threefold  basis  of  fact: 
First,  the  membership  of  the  I.  W.  W.  is  and  is  bound  to 
be  of  such  a  character  that  united,  sustained,  constructive 
action  is  practically  impossible  for  it  without  a  consistent 
body  of  ideals  and  a  relatively  permanent  leadership  of 
the  highest  organizing  and  directive  quality. 

As  already  intimated,  the  I.  W.  W.  must  depend  for 
the  bulk  of  its  membership  on  the  least  capable,  least 
developed,  lowest  trained,  and  poorest  paid  of  American 
workmen.  To  these  may  be  added  an  element  made  up 
of  irresponsible  atomists  who  are  so  constituted  that  to 
them  all  authority  is  an  ever-present  challenge.  No 
American  workman  of  constructive  mind  will  perma- 
nently affiliate  himself  with  a  revolutionary  industrial 
organization  which  abhors  half -measures  and  political 
action,  so  long  as  he  can  see  ahead  the  hope  of  imme- 
diate betterment  through  the  gradual  development  and 
enforcement  of  an  improved  system  of  working  rules  and 
conditions.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  I.  W.  W.  is 
composed  of  the  so-called  "bum"  element,  as  is  so  often 
asserted.  Far  from  it.  But  it  does  mean  that  it  is  the 
desperate  elements  of  the  working  class,  the  men  who 
have  not  developed  and  cannot  develop,  under  the  exist- 
ing system,  organic  discipline  and  constructive  ability, 
to  whom  the  I.  W.  W.  appeals — in  the  East  the  *'Hunk- 
ies"  and  underpaid  mill  hands,  for  the  most  part  tinas- 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  149 

similated  Europeans;  in  the  West  the  "blanket  stiffs," 
the  "timber  wolves,"  "the  dock  wallopers,"  and  the  pa- 
drone-recruited construction  gangs;  and  everywhere  the 
man  who  because  of  temperament  or  oppression  has  be- 
come a  self-directing  enemy  of  whatever  stands  for  au- 
thority or  things  as  they  are.  One  had  but  to  observe 
the  recent  convention  to  recognize  these  types  and  these 
characteristics  as  predominant  even  in  this  picked  as- 
sembly. Undernourishment  and  underdevelopment  were 
prominent  physical  characteristics  of  the  group.  The 
broad-headed,  square-jawed,  forceful,  and  constructive 
type,  so  marked  in  trade-union  assemblies,  was  conspicu- 
ous by  its  absence.  B}'-  many  of  those  present  organic 
strength  and  action  were  evidently  regarded  as  correla- 
tives of  oppression.  To  some  these  ideas  seemed  so  for- 
eign that  the  general  character  of  the  organization  ap- 
peared to  be  unknown  to  them.  The  rule  of  the  ma- 
jority, except  in  so  far  as  it  applied  to  the  local  group, 
was  repudiated  many  times  during  the  course  of  the 
debates.  Add  to  all  this  the  presence  in  the  assembly  of 
members  of  secret  committees  whose  actions  are  beyond 
even  the  knowledge  and  control  of  the  local  groups — 
and  we  have  a  fair  conception  of  the  difficulty  here  pre- 
sented of  united  and  controlled  action.  Obviously  only  a 
body  of  leaders  strong  in  intelligence  and  personality, 
bound  to  a  consistent  body  of  ideals,  harmonious  in  ac- 
tion, and  long  in  the  saddle,  could  hope  to  weld  such 
elements  into  an  effective,  organic  whole. 

But,  secondly,  the  I.  W.  W.  has  failed  to  develop  and 
sustain  such  a  stable  body  of  leaders  and  shows  no  capac- 
ity to  do  so.  Of  the  original  group  of  men  who  organ- 
ized and  outlined  the  policies  of  this  new  venture  in 
unionism,  only  one  was  seated   in  the  convention  and 


150  TRADE  UNIONISM 

only  one  or  two  besides  are  prominently  connected  with 
the  organization  at  present.  Moyer,  Debs,  Mother  Jones, 
Pinkerton,  and  others,  signers  of  the  original  manifesto, 
effective  leaders  of  the  past,  many  of  them  yet  effective 
leaders  in  other  labor  organizations,  have  all  disappeared 
from  the  councils  of  the  I.  W.  W. — nagged  out,  kicked 
out,  or  driven  out  by  despair  or  disgust.  This  result  has 
been  in  part  the  inevitable  outcome  of  the  hatred  of  au- 
thority which  expresses  itself  in  the  decentralizing  move- 
ment. Partly,  as  will  be  shown  later,  it  is  the  outcome  of 
an  incongruity  and  shifting  of  ideals  within  the  organi- 
zation; but,  to  no  small  extent,  it  is  the  product  of  a 
strong  force  of  romantic  idealism  which,  strange  as  it 
may  seem,  exists  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  down- 
trodden constituency  of  the  I.  W.  W.  In  spite  of  the 
fact  that  these  men  will  have  none  of  the  regularly  con- 
stituted authority  when  it  makes  for  strength,  they  are 
hero-worshipers  and  are  easily  led  for  the  moment  by 
the  "heroes  of  labor."  These  heroes  are  the  momentary 
leaders  of  strikes  and  of  battles  with  the  police  and 
militia,  those  especially  who  have  gone  on  trial  and  suf- 
fered imprisonment  for  violence  or  the  disturbance  of 
the  public  peace.  They  are,  in  general,  men  who  them- 
selves have  not  involuntarily  suffered  at  the  hands  of 
society  but  have  provoked  its  vengeance.  They  are 
largely  well  nourished,  quick,  and  intelligent,  but,  with 
exceptions,  they  are  men  who  have  deliberately  dis- 
carded all  constructive  ideals,  deliberately  thrown  off 
social  restraint,  and,  in  the  spirit  of  the  medieval  knight 
or  the  revolutionist  of  the  well-to-do  classes  in  Russia, 
have  constituted  themselves  the  personal  avengers  of  the 
wrongs  of  the  working  class.  Such  men  grip  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  rank  and  file  and  make  of  what  would 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  151 

otherwise  be  an  ultra-democratic  organization,  relatively 
unfitted  for  constructive  effort,  a  positively  destructive 
force  in  spirit  and  action.  They  are  the  inventors  of 
new  forms  of  sabotage,  the  guerilla  leaders,  the  mem- 
bers of  "secret  committees,"  the  provocateurs  in  the 
free-speech  fights ;  the  men  who  create  the  sentiment  that 
the  only  existing  standard  of  right  is  might,  that  oppo- 
sition to  authority  is  a  virtue,  that  imprisonment  is  an 
honor.  It  is  these  labor  heroes,  rising  from  time  to 
time  before  the  admiring  vision  of  the  undisciplined 
membership  of  the  I.  W.  W.,  who  have  displaced  the 
men  already  in  power  and,  to  a  large  extent,  have  made 
impossible  the  development  of  a  stable  body  of  leaders 
capable  of  welding  the  membership  by  patient  effort  into 
an  organic  whole. 

Underneath  all  this,  however,  making  consistent  ac- 
tion and  therefore  permanent  development  impossible  for 
the  I.  W.  W.,  there  exists  and  has  existed,  thirdly,  a 
fundamental  conflict  of  ideals.  Much  has  been  made  of 
the  sabotage  and  other  modes  of  direct  action  current 
among  the  members  of  the  I.  W.  W.  Because  of  the 
prevalence  of  these  methods,  the  conclusion  has  been 
accepted  uncritically  that  I.  W.  W.-ism  is  another  name 
for  syndicalism.  This,  however,  is  but  a  half-truth  and 
even  as  such  it  needs  qualification.  The  truth  is  that 
the  I.  W.  W.  is  a  compound  entity  whose  elements  are 
not  entirely  harmonious.  It  was  launched  in  1905  as  a 
protest  against  craft  unionism  and  the  conservative  atti- 
tude and  policies  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. 
It  was  originally  composed  prevailingly  of  a  body  of  men 
socialistically  inclined  who  believed  that  betterment  of 
the  condition  of  the  workers  as  a  whole  and  permanently 
could  be  attained  only  by  organizing  all  of  them  by  in- 


152  TRADE  UNIONISM 

dustries  into  one  big  union  with  the  ultimate  object  of 
the  overthrow  of  the  capitalist  system.  In  order  to  at- 
tain this  end  they  outlined  an  organization  which  should 
bring  the  skilled  and  unskilled  workers  into  one  struc- 
tural body  with  highly  centralized  authority,  so  that  the 
whole  power  of  the  organization — especially  its  financial 
power — could  be  quickly  concentrated  at  any  one  point 
where  contest  existed  between  the  employers  and  the 
workmen,  and  which  should  cooperate  with  the  Socialist 
party  on  the  political  field.  The  slogans  of  the  organi- 
zation were :  "Labor  produces  all  wealth" ;  "might  makes 
right";  "an  injury  to  one  an  injury  to  all" ;  "no  contracts 
and  no  compromise" ;  "industrial  organization"  ;  "one  big 
union";  "workers  of  the  world,  unite."  The  I.  W.  W. 
showed  at  this  time  no  essential  characteristics  of  what: 
has  since  become  familiar  as  revolutionary  syndicalism. 

No  sooner,  however,  had  the  organization  been 
launched  than  a  conflict  of  ideals  appeared.  The  first 
year  saw  a  fatal  blow  struck  at  the  idea  of  one  big  union 
with  strong,  centralized  authority — in  a  disruption  which 
resulted  in  the  abolition  of  the  office  of  general  president 
of  the  organization.  In  1908  a  second  split  occurred 
which  banished  the  Socialistic  element  from  power.  Po- 
litical action  was  stricken  from  the  preamble  to  the  con- 
stitution and  direct  action  as  a  revolutionary  slogan  arose 
alongside  the  notion  of  one  big,  centralized,  industrial 
union.  From  this  time  forward  the  internal  history  of 
the  I.  W.  W.  has  been  a  history  of  the  con- 
flict of  these  two  ideals — the  one,  industrial  union- 
ism, standing  for  permanent  organization  of  the  work- 
ers and  immediate  benefits,  requiring  a  strong  central 
authority  well  financed;  the  other,  revolutionary  syndi- 
palisrn,  standing  for  uncontrolled  agitation  and  guerilla 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  153 

warfare,  whose  adherents  chafe  against  central  authority 
and  its  financial  support. 

Out  of  this  conflict  of  ideals  the  contest  between  cen- 
tralization and  decentralization  arose.  The  decentrali- 
zers,  mainly  westerners,  imbued  with  the  revolutionary 
ideal  because  they  were  for  the  most  part  casual  workers 
with  no  big  industries  to  organize,  whose  main  recourse 
was  to  stir  up  trouble,  argued  that  since  this  was  the 
purpose  of  the  organization  all  central  authority  was  to 
be  reckoned  as  irksome  restraint.  The  local  membership 
could  best  judge  when  the  time  had  come  to  act.  A  cen- 
tral treasury  was  not  needed  since  one  or  a  few  indi- 
viduals acting  on  their  own  responsibility  could  wreck 
machinery,  destroy  materials,  and  precipitate  a  contest 
with  political  authority.  Therefore  they  raised  the  ban- 
ner of  decentralization  and  direct  revolution.  Thus  was 
syndicaHsm  born  and  nourished  in  the  I.  W.  W,  But 
it  was  mainly  an  instinctive  syndicalism,  a  blind,  destruc- 
tive force,  lacking  in  general  the  vision  and  well-rounded 
doctrine  of  the  European  syndicalists.  Even  yet  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  few  among  the  rank  and  file  who  call 
themselves  syndicalists  could  state  the  theory  of  the  Eu- 
ropean movement.  Meanwhile  in  the  East  the  rela- 
tively permanent  character  of  the  unskilled  workers,  and 
the  necessity  of  wrenching  from  great  industrial  organi- 
zations immediate  and  permanent  gains,  still  emphasized 
the  need  of  regularity,  authority,  and  permanent  power 
— in  short,  industrial  unionism  in  its  original  connota- 
tion. Hence  syndicalism  and  industrial  unionism  have 
remained  as  conflicting  ideals  within  the  organization, 
preventing  the  development  of  that  leadership  which 
alone  can  give  to  the  I.  W.  W.  consistent  action,  per- 
manent growth,  and  effective  power.     So  long  as  the 


tS4  TRADE  UNIONISM 

conflict  holds,  the  organization  must  remain  weak,  spas- 
modic in  action,  and  destructive  in  results. 

But  it  is  doubtful  if  the  final  triumph  of  either  of  these 
ideals  would  suffice  to  make  of  the  I.  W.  W.  a  real  power 
in  this  country.  In  this  connection  two  points  need  em- 
phasis :  first,  in  so  far  as  the  I.  W.  W.  aspires  to  repre- 
sent syndicalism  pure  and  simple  the  conditions  are  not 
here  for  its  growth.  Syndicalism  as  it  has  developed  in 
this  country  is  a  doctrine  of  despair.  However  much  its 
proponents  may  attempt  to  stress  its  ultimate  ideal — the 
rebuilding  of  industrial  society — it  is  essentially  a  de- 
structive philosophy.  As  stated  above,  it  will  not  be 
adopted,  except  temporarily  and  under  special  stress,  by 
any  body  of  workmen  who  see  hope  ahead  in  gradual 
betterment  through  constructive  industrial  and  political 
action.  Such  a  body  is  the  organizing  element  of  the 
American  working  class  as  evidenced  by  the  two  and  one- 
half  million  trade  unionists,  and  the  growth  of  the  Social- 
ist party  since  it  has  taken  an  opportunist  position. 

Secondly,  in  so  far  as  the  I.  W.  W.  aspires  to  represent 
the  movement  toward  industrial  unionism,  the  field  of 
action  is  already  occupied.  The  American  Federation  of 
Labor  through  its  local  councils,  its  central  organizations, 
its  system  federations,  its  departments,  and  its  amalga- 
mated craft  unions,  is  creating  the  machinery  for  the 
practical  expression  of  the  industrial  union  ideal  as 
rapidly  as  the  circumstances  of  the  worker's  life  and 
needs  allow  of  its  development.  The  process  is  perhaps 
slow  but  it  is  sure  and  effective.  It  is  proceeding  by  the 
trial-and-error  method  which  alone  has  proved  adequate 
to  the  permanent  advancement  of  the  interests  of  the 
workers.  And  when  it  is  considered  further  that  within 
the  American  Federation  one  industrial  union  alone  out- 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  155 

numbers  in  membership  the  whole  effective  force  of  the  I. 
W.  W.  in  the  proportion  of  twenty  to  one,  the  prospect 
that  the  latter  will  be  able  to  oust  its  rival  from  the  field 
becomes  too  small  for  consideration. 

The  fact  is  that  the  I.  W.  W.  faces  a  perpetual  dilem- 
ma. The  bulk  of  the  American  workmen  want  more 
here  and  now  for  themselves  and  their  immediate  asso- 
ciates and  care  little  for  the  remote  future  or  the  revolu- 
tionary ideal.  These  will  have  none  of  the  I.  W.  W. 
The  others  have  not,  and  under  the  existing  conditions 
cannot  develop  the  capacity  for  sustained  organic  effort. 
Whichever  way  the  organization  turns,  then,  it  seems 
doomed  to  failure. 

Viewing  the  situation  in  any  reasonable  light,  there- 
fore, we  find  It  difficult  to  escape  the  conclusion  that  the 
Industrial  Workers  of  the  World  as  a  positive  social 
factor  is  more  an  object  of  pathetic  interest  than  of 
fear.  It  has  succeeded  in  impressing  itself  upon  the  popu- 
lar imagination  as  a  mysterious,  incalculable  force  likely 
to  appear  and  work  destruction  at  any  time  and  place. 
It  has  terrified  the  public  because  its  small  body  of  ir- 
responsible and  foot-loose  agitators  scent  trouble  from 
afar  and  flock  to  the  point  where  social  rupture  seems  to 
be  for  the  moment  imminent.  They  are  like  Morgan's 
raiders.  By  rapidity  of  movement  and  sheer  audacity 
they  have  created  the  impression  of  a  great  organized 
force.  But  in  reality  they  are  incapable  of  anything  but 
spasmodic  and  disconnected  action.  As  a  means  for  call* 
ing  attention  to  the  fact  that  machinery  is  breaking  down 
the  distinction  between  skilled  and  unskilled  labor  and 
is  thus  rendering  craft  organization  ineffective ;  as  an  in- 
strument for  rousing  the  public  to  a  consciousness  of 
the  suffering  and  needs  of  the  unskilled  and  transient 


156  TRADE  UNIONISM 

workers  and  of  the  existence  here  of  a  compelling  social 
problem ;  as  a  spur  to  the  activity  of  the  more  conserva- 
tive and  exclusive  labor  organizations,  the  I.  W.  W.  may 
have  a  useful  social  function.  As  a  directly  effective 
social  force,  however,  It  has  no  considerable  significance. 

The  conclusion,  so  far  as  it  concerns  the  problem  of 
syndicalism  in  the  United  States,  would  seem  to  be  obvi- 
ous. But  I  am  well  aware  that  those  who  feel  a  vital, 
constitutional  need  for  visualizing  and  magnifying  such 
a  problem  will  not  abandon  their  beliefs  merely  on  this 
showing  of  evidence.  They  will  doubtless  point  to  the 
undeniable  growth  of  industrial  unionism  within  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  and  to  the  many  sporadic 
outbreaks  of  violent  and  predatory  action  with  which  the 
history  of  our  labor  movement  has  been  checkered,  as 
indicating  the  development  of  syndicalism  in  spirit  and 
action  within  the  American  labor  movement  quite  apart 
from  any  formal  organization  or  teaching — a  great 
ground  swell,  they  will  say,  carrying  the  whole  move- 
ment onward  toward  the  syndicalist  bourne.  But  let  us 
see  whether  these  are  really  syndicalistic  manifestations. 
I  doubt  it,  and  for  these  two  reasons : 

First,  I  venture  to  affirm  that  there  is  no  nx)re  neces- 
sary connection  between  industrial  unionism  and  syndi- 
calism than  between  capitalism  and  monarchy.  Indus- 
trial unionism  on  the  face  of  it  is  merely  an  attempt  to 
parallel  capitalist  organization.  It  is  perfectly  com- 
patible with  collective  bargaining  and  with  what  we  might 
call  business  unionism,  as  is  illustrated  by  the  case  of 
the  United  Mine  Workers.  It  is  the  ideal  type  of  union- 
ism advocated  by  the  socialists.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
may  grow  up  along  with  nonsocialist  political  action,  as 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  157 

in  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  where  a  strong 
tendency  toward  industrial  organization  has  gone  hand 
in  hand  with  a  robust  development  of  legislative  and 
political  activity.  Evidently,  then,  it  indicates  a  hope- 
less confusion  of  ideas  to  identify  syndicalism  with  in- 
dustrial unionism,  and  it  is  a  misuse  of  reason  to  predicate 
the  one  as  necessarily  the  result  of  the  other. 

How  then  about  union  violence  and  predation?  Do 
they  show  any  necessary  affinity  between  unionism  and 
syndicalism  ?  In  order  to  answer  this  question  correctly 
let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  most  usual  occasion  for 
deliberate  violence  and  predation  on  the  part  of  old-line 
unionists.  It  is  a  fact  that  almost  any  body  of  union 
men,  whatever  their  principles  and  ordinary  methods,  and 
for  that  matter  almost  any  body  of  workers,  will  tend 
to  resort  to  violence  and  perhaps  predation  if  they  are 
face  to  face  with  systematic  and  long-continued  aggres- 
sion, or  are  brought  up  against  a  blank  wall  of  resistance 
to  demands  for  the  absolute  essentials  of  a  safe  and  de- 
cent existence,  provided  there  is  no  relief  in  sight  through 
law  or  public  opinion.  But  the  same  is  true  of  any  body 
of  men  with  red  blood  in  their  veins  or  of  women,  for 
that  matter.  Shall  we  then  dissipate  our  concept  of 
syndicalism  by  making  it  cover  the  action  of  the  Boston 
Tea  Party,  the  Ku-Klux  Klan,  the  Mexican  revolutionists 
and  the  militant  suffragettes  ?  Surely  we  must  not  con- 
fuse spasmodic  outbreaks  against  specific  oppression  with 
direct  action  as  the  corollary  of  a  fixed  and  general  aver- 
sion to  peaceful  opportunist  effort  and  political  action. 
Only,  then,  when  union  violence  and  predation  have  been 
the  outgrowth  of  a  permanent  aversion  of  this  kind,  or 
when  such  aversion  has  grown  up  with  the  violence  and 


158  TRADE  UNIONISM 

has  become  a  fixed  creed  of  a  union  can  we  rightfully 
speak  of  them  as  syndicalistic  in  character. 

But  shall  we  nowhere  find  this  permanent  attitude  out- 
side of  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World?  The 
American  Railway  Union  was  not  adverse  to  political 
action;  the  Western  Federation  of  Miners  has  again 
joined  forces  with  the  American  Federation  of  Labor; 
the  Bridge  and  Structural  Iron  Workers  show  no  signs 
apparently  of  going  over  to  the  syndicalist  camp. 

Must  we  not  then  conclude  that,  in  drawing  the  In- 
dustrial Workers  of  the  World  into  the  picture  in  its 
proper  character  and  proportion,  we  have  pretty  thor- 
oughly disposed  of  syndicalism  as  a  serious  American 
problem  ? 

So  far  so  good;  but  have  we  any  assurance  that  we 
shall  not  soon  have  to  face  a  serious  syndicalist  problem 
in  America  ?  To  satisfy  ourselves  on  this  point  we  should 
have  to  discuss  our  third  question,  namely:  What  are 
the  causes  of  syndicalism,  and  what  are  the  prospects  of 
its  future  development  ?  I  shall  not  attempt  to  discuss  this 
question  fully,  but  shall  be  content  to  make  one  or  two 
suggestive  statements  indicating  why  syndicalism  has  not 
developed  and  is  not  likely  to  develop  on  American  soil, 
and  the  conditions  which  would  be  necessary  for  its  de- 
velopment here. 

Successful  trade  unionism  as  it  exists  in  America  today 
is  not  a  made-to-order  affair;  it  is  not  imitative  of  any- 
thing to  be  found  abroad,  nor  is  it  the  objectification  of 
any  general  social  theory.  It  is  a  means,  slowly  forged 
by  experience,  of  meeting  the  immediate  needs,  and  of 
solving  the  immediate  problems  of  the  American  work- 
ers. It  has  been  developed  by  the  trial-and-error  method ; 
it  is  experimental,  opportunistic,  and  pragmatic.    And,  if 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  159 

you  will  look  back  over  the  last  century  and  a  quarter  you 
will  find  that  this  is  the  only  kind  of  labor  organization 
that  has  survived  and  worked  in  this  country.  Even 
socialism,  before  it  could  make  any  successful  appeal  to 
American  workmen,  had  to  cut  loose  from  the  ultra- 
revolutionists,  thrust  its  theories  into  the  background, 
and  develop  a  program  for  meeting  immediate  needs  and 
problems.  ' 

The  immediate  reason  for  all  this  lies  in  the  character 
of  the  organizing  element  of  American  workmen.  The 
great  mass  of  organized  American  workmen  are  not 
conscious  revolutionists,  but  optimistic  opportunists. 
They  want  more  here  and  now.  Their  attention  is 
fixed  on  meeting  immediate  needs  and  solving  immediate 
problems.  They  see  hope  ahead  in  a  gradual  improve- 
ment of  existing  conditions.  They  have  little  capacity 
for  or  patience  with  speculative  theorizing.  They  are 
unwilling  to  leave  the  path  which  has  been  marked  out 
by  experience  with  its  slow  but  sure  advance,  to  plunge 
into  theoretically  assumed  short  cuts  charted  only  by  the 
imagination.  This  is  the  general  attitude  of  that  portion 
of  the  American  working  class  which  has  alone  proved  it- 
self capable  of  sustained  organic  effort. 

This  attitude  is  the  outcome  partly  of  the  racial  char- 
acter of  American  workmen,  and  partly  of  American 
economic  and  social  conditions.  The  hard-headed,  tra- 
dition-bound, empirical  element  predominates  in  our  labor 
movement  just  as  it  does  in  our  business  affairs,  in  law 
and  politics  and  in  our  social  ideals  and  affairs  generally, 
and  this  characteristic,  perhaps  racial,  has  been  reenforced 
by  the  fact  that  the  economic  and  social  conditions  have 
for  generations  been  such  that  the  workers  could  see 
hope  ahead  in  gradual  betterment  through  constructive 


i6o  TRADE  UNIONISM 

industrial  and  political  action.  The  labor  movement  thus 
given  /Character  has  assimilated  and  Americanized  for- 
eign accretions,  just  as  in  general  we  have  assimilated 
and  Americanized  the  immigrant,  socially  and  politically. 

It  is  true  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other  that  assimila- 
tion and  transmutation  have  not  been  complete,  but  if 
our  labor  history  has  proved  anything,  as  indicated  es- 
pecially by  the  career  of  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the 
World,  it  is  that  those  elements  which  have  not  been 
assimilated  are  incapable  of  consistent,  and  effective  or- 
ganic union  and  action,  and  that  the  spasmodic  organic 
efforts  of  such  a  body  as  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the 
World  fail  to  check  the  growth  and  do  not  essentially 
modify  the  ideals  and  methods  of  the  American  and 
Americanized  labor  movement. 

On  account  of  all  this  there  is  no  syndicalist  problem 
of  consequence  in  this  country.  We  shall  have  none  of 
consequence,  I  believe,  unless  and  until  the  great  organic 
American  labor  movement  finds  its  way  barred  to  em- 
pirical advance.  It  is  now  feeling  its  way  toward  the 
organizing  of  the  unskilled,  and  will  doubtless  organize 
them  as  fast  as  the  psychology  of  the  situation  will  per- 
mit ;  it  is  advancing  experimentally  toward  the  industrial 
form  of  organization,  as  anyone  must  concede  who  is  at 
all  familiar  with  the  organic  history  and  the  declarations 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor;  it  is  at  the  same 
time  forging  ahead  on  the  line  of  political  action  as  fast 
as  tradition  will  safely  allow ;  it  is  gradually  overcoming 
the  employers'  claims  of  autocratic  rights,  and  estab- 
lishing the  principles  and  working  rules  of  industrial 
democracy.  Whenever  it  comes  face  to  face  with  a  blank 
wall  of  resistance  in  law  and  administration,  whenever 
it  encounters  trusts  and  employers'  associations  bent  upon 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  i6i 

its  extermination,  it  is  apt  to  adopt  secret,  violent,  and 
predatory  methods.  But  when  the  temporary  occasion 
is  past  it  quickly  returns  to  its  ordinary  ideals  and  tactics. 
And  if  I  read  the  character  and  spirit  of  the  American 
labor  movement  aright,  it  would  take  a  deal  of  useless 
battering  against  an  impenetrable  wall  of  legal  and  in- 
dustrial resistance  to  create  in  the  American  labor  move- 
ment the  general  psychology  compatible  with  a  real  and 
robust  development  of  syndicalism. 

The  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World  is  one  aspect 
of  revolutionary  unionism.  To  understand  it,  there- 
fore, we  must  have  some  understanding  of  the  larger 
thing  of  which  it  is  a  part.  In  the  popular  conception 
of  things  revolutionary  unionism  is  generally  distin- 
guished by  violence  and  sabotage.  The  tendency,  how- 
ever, to  make  violence  the  hall-mark  of  revolutionary 
unionism  is  a  great  mistake.  The  bulk  of  revolutionary 
unionists  embraces  the  most  peaceful  citizens  we  have, 
and  on  principle.  Most  violence  in  labor  troubles  is 
committed  by  conservative  unionists  or  by  the  unorgan- 
ized.® In  Chicago  violence  has  become  inseparably  as- 
sociated in  the  public  mind  with  organizations  in  the 
building  trades.  "Slugging"  raids  and  shooting  affairs 
have  come  to  be  taken  as  a  matter  of  course  and  excite 
little  interest.  A  few  years  ago  these  union  tactics  at- 
tained their  highest  development  under  the  leadership 
of  "Skinny"  Madden,  then  in  control  of  the  central 
building  trades  organization.  But  Madden  and  his  men 
were  not  looking  to  any  overthrow  of  existing  condi- 
tions.   His  were  the  methods  of  predatory  hold-up  union- 

«That  is  to  say,  the  violence  which  is  due  to  the  labor 
unions. 


i62  TRADE  UNIONISM 

ism.  Nor  was  the  recent  dynamiting  campaign  of  the 
Bridge  and  Structural  Iron  Workers  the  product  of  revo- 
lutionary unionism.  Here,  rather,  was  a  case  of  a  con- 
servative union  fighting  with  its  back  to  the  wall  against 
a  campaign  of  annihilation  by  an  employers'  combina- 
tion. In  the  last  ditch,  it  turned,  not  to  revolution,  but 
to  guerilla  warfare  and  guerilla  unionism.  And  this  also 
to  a  large  degree  characterizes  the  recent  violent  acts  of 
the  miners  in  Colorado.  In  short,  violence  in  labor 
troubles  is  a  unique  characteristic  of  no  kind  of  union- 
ism, but  is  a  general  and  apparently  inevitable  incident 
of  the  rise  of  the  working  class  to  consciousness  and 
power  in  capitalistic  society. 

Secondly,  revolutionary  unionism  is  not  to  be  marked 
off  from  other  kinds  of  unionism  by  its  employment  of 
sabotage  as  an  offensive  and  defensive  weapon.  It  is 
true  that  sabotage  is  a  weapon  whose  use  is  highly  char- 
acteristic of  revolutionary  unionism,  but  the  notion  that 
its  use  is  confined  to  revolutionary  unionists  fades  out 
the  moment  its  true  character  and  varied  forms  are 
known.'''     It  is  moreover  distinctly  repudiated  by  many 

''  Sabotage  is  an  elusive  phenomenon  and  is  difficult  of  ac- 
curate definition.  Briefly  described  it  is  called  "striking  on 
the  job."  J.  A.  Estey,  in  his  "Revolutionary  Unionism,"  does 
well  when  he  says:  "In  Syndicalist  practice  it  [sabotage]  is  a 
comprehensive  term,  covering  every  process  by  which  the 
laborer,  while  remaining  at  work,  tries  to  damage  the  in- 
terests of  his  employer,  whether  by  simple  malingering,  or 
by  bad  quality  of  work,  or  by  doing  actual  damage  to  tools 
and  machinery"  (p.  96).  This  definition  puts  admirably  the 
essential,  underlying  characteristics  of  sabotage,  but  in  practice 
it  ranges  even  beyond  such  limits.  There  are  almost  an 
indefinite  number  of  ways  of  "putting  the  boots  to  the  em- 
ployer" which  have  come  properly  to  be  included  under  the 
general  designation,  and  some  of  them  have  been  employed  by 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  163 

revolutionary  unionists,  is  not  confined  to  revolutionary 
unions,  and,  it  might  be  added,  is  not  confined  to  the 
workers  alone. *^  It  is  clear  then  that  revolutionary 
unionism  cannot,  by  this  practice,  be  marked  off  and  made 
a  definite  and  clearly  recognizable  thing. 

What,  then,  is  revolutionary  unionism,  and  how  are 
we  to  distinguish  and  recognize  it?  Revolutionary  union- 
ism is  in  essence  a  spiritual  something,  a  group  viewpoint, 
a  theory  and  interpretation  of  society  and  social  relation- 
ships held  by  groups  of  militant  wageworkers,  and  an 
attempt  to  realize  this  theory  and  interpretation  by  means 
of  a  program  of  action.  A  distinct  organization  com- 
mitted to  this  program  and  viewpoint  is  a  thing  always 
striven  for,  but  is  not  an  essential  feature  nor  at  present 
a  general  characteristic  of  revolutionary  unionism  in  the 
United  States.  That  is  to  say,  while  there  are  distinct 
revolutionary  organizations  in  this  country,  such  as  the 
Industrial  Workers  of  the  World,  and  lately  the  Syndi- 
calist League,  most  revolutionary  unionists-  are*  found 

conservative  unionists  time  out  of  mind.  Ca'  Canny  or  soldier- 
ing is  one  of  them,  which  was  a  practice  long  before  revolu- 
tionary unionism  was  known  to  the  mass  of  the  workers.  In 
essence  it  is  practiced  by  every  union  that  sets  a  limitation 
on  output.  Living  strictly  up  to  impossible  safety  rules  enacted 
by  the  employers  for  their  own  protection  is  another  method. 
Wasting  materials,  turning  out  goods  of  inferior  quality  or 
damaging  them  in  the  process,  misdirecting  shipments,  telling 
the  truth  about  the  quality  of  products,  changing  price  cards, 
sanding  the  bearings,  salting  the  soup  and  the  sheets,  "throw- 
ing the  monkey  wrench  into  the  machinery" — all  are  methods 
of  practicing  sabotage  that  have  become  familiar. 

^  As  the  unionists  point  out,  essentially  the  same  thing  is 
practiced  by  employers  and  dealers  who  adulterate  goods,  make 
shoddy,  conceal  defects  of  products,  and  sell  |[oods  for  what 
they  are  not. 


'i64  TRADE  UNIONISM 

within  conservative  trade  unions,  with  no  separate  or- 
ganic expression  of  their  own.  To  distinguish  revolu- 
tionary unionism,  therefore,  and  to  get  an  accurate  un- 
derstanding of  the  matter  in  hand  we  must  distinguish 
its  varieties  before  going  further.  The  first,  socmlistic 
unionism,  is  represented  organically  by  the  Detroit  In- 
dustrial Workers  of  the  World  and  by  a  small  number 
of  national  unions  in  the  American  Federation  of  Labor. 
The  larger  number  of  socialist  unionists,  however,  have 
no  separate  union  organization.  They  are  to  be  found 
in  the  supposedly  conservative  business  and  uplift  unions 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  and  the  Railway 
Brotherhoods.  The  mine  workers,  the  painters,  the  bak- 
ers, for  example,  are  largely  socialist  unionists.  The 
second  variety  of  revolutionary  unionism  found  in  this 
country  is  anarchistic,  or  more  accurately,  quasi  anarchis- 
tic. It  is  best  represented  by  the  Chicago  Industrial 
Workers  of  the  World.  But,  again,  there  are  quasi 
anarchistic  unionists  scattered  through  the  conservative 
and  socialistic  unions. 

Revolutionary  unionism,  in  both  its  forms,  starts  with 
the  assumption  that  society  is  divided  into  two  warring 
classes,  between  which  there  are  no  common  interests 
and  no  possibility  of  compromise.  The  workers  produce 
all  wealth;  the  employers  systematically  rob  them.  The 
workers  cannot  secure  and  enjoy  what  they  produce  until 
they  rule  society.^    In  this  fight,  the  revolutionary  union- 

^See  Constitution,  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World,  Pre- 
amble §§  I,  2;  also  Industrial  Unionism  vs.  Anarchy  and  Re- 
form, p.  4,  Detroit  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World.  But 
see  also  Declaration  of  Principles  of  Bakery  and  Confectionery 
Workers,  a  compound  craft  union  in  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor, 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  165 

ists  refuse  to  recognize  the  validity  of  the  standards  of 
right  and  justice,  the  laws  and  the  rules  of  the  game 
current  in  society.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  society  as 
a  whole.  Established  notions  of  right,  established  rights 
and  the  institutions  in  their  support  are  the  devices  of 
the  employing  class  designed  to  keep  labor  down  and 
exploit  the  workers.  Therefore,  the  workers  are  not 
bound  by  these  things.  For  the  workers — just  as  well 
as  for  the  employers — whatever  is  for  their  interests  as 
a  class,  whatever  furthers  their  ends.  Is  right.  In  short, 
in  the  last  analysis,  there  is  no  standard  of  right  and 
rights  but  might.  This  doctrine  Is  held  without  reserve 
by  quasi  anarchistic  unionists.  It  justifies  to  them  vio- 
lence, destruction  of  property  and  even  killing.  It  would 
be  unfair,  however,  to  say  this  of  the  socialistic  union- 
ists. While  they  declare  that  actual  rights  are  based  on 
might,  they  refuse  to  admit  that  might  ought  to  make 
right,  and,  therefore,  stop  short  of  justifying  violence 
and  killing. 

It  Is  the  primary  aim  of  all  revolutionary  unionists 
to  overthrow  the  existing  Institutional  order ;  to  do  away 
with  individual  ownership  of  the  means  of  production 
and  the  profit  system;  to  put  social  and  Industrial  con- 
trol Into  the  hands  of  the  workers.  To  accomplish  this, 
they  propose  to  unite  the  workers  not  by  crafts,  as  is 
the  case  generally  of  conservative  unionism,  but  by  in- 
dustries, and,  finally,  Into  one  great  working  class  or- 
ganization, so  that  In  a  fight  workers  cannot  be  used 
against  workers,  but  the  whole  power  of  the  class  can 
be  brought  to  bear  against  the  employers  at  any  point. 
But  beyond  this,  the  socialist  unionists  and  the  quasi 
anarchistic  unionists  dififer  vitally  and  widely.     They 


i66  TRADE  UNIONISM 

differ  as  to  ultimate  aims,  as  to  program,  and  as  to 
methods. 

The  socialist  unionists  look  forward  to  a  state  of 
society  which,  except  for  common  ownership  and  con- 
trol of  industry  and  strong  centralized  government  in 
the  hands  of  the  working  class,  does  not  differ  essen- 
tially from  our  own.  They  would  in  general  attain  this 
end  by  peaceful  means,  both  industrial  and  political.  In- 
dustrially, they  would  organize  the  w^orkers  into  larger 
and  larger  units,  and  by  the  usual  trade  union  methods 
secure  for  them  better  and  better  conditions  and  a 
greater  and  greater  voice  and  place  in  the  control  and 
management  of  industry.  Politically,  they  would  unite 
the  same  workers  into  a  great  party  designed  to  educate 
them  and  others  in  civil  affairs,  to  push  for  legislation 
in  the  social  and  industrial  interests  of  the  workers,  and 
ultimately  to  secure  control  of  the  legislative,  administra- 
tive, and  judicial  powers  of  the  government.  Ulti- 
mately, the  industrial  employer  would  be  eliminated  by 
the  w^orking  class  state. 

The  quasi  anarchistic  unionists  have  a  different  ulti- 
mate aim.  They  look  forward  to  the  complete  abolition 
of  the  state  and  of  existing  governmental  machinery. 
They  visualize,  not  a  political,  but  an  industrial  society, 
where  the  unions  would  be  the  government.  All  politi- 
cal action  is  abhorrent  to  them,  partly  because  the  state 
is  outside  their  scheme  of  things  and  political  action  is 
a  recognition  of  a  compromise  with  it,  but  largely  be- 
cause they  believe  that  experience  has  proved  it  to  be 
not  only  useless  as  a  working-class  weapon  but  posi- 
tively harmful  to  working-class  interests.  They  have 
noted  that  political  associations  and  political  gains  make 
the  workers   soft,   conservative,   and   nonrevolutionary. 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  167 

Revolution  degenerates  into  mere  reform,  and  political 
preferment  makes  traitors  of  working-class  leaders.  The 
middle-class  tendencies  of  the  Socialist  Parties  in  Ger- 
many, France  and  the  United  States,  and  the  action  of 
such  men  as  Briand  and  John  Burns  have  brought  them 
to  this  view.  Direct  action,  therefore,  has  become  their 
slogan,  that  is,  the  making  and  enforcing  of  demands 
upon  the  enemy  directly  by  the  workers,  through  demon- 
strations, strikes,  sabotage  and  violence.  At  this  point, 
however,  the  quasi  anarchistic  revolutionary  unionists 
themselves  split  into  two  camps,  centralizers  and  decen- 
tralizers. 

The  centralizers  believe  that  the  actual  building  up 
of  the  industrial  organization  will  train  and  educate  the 
workers  in  the  conduct,  not  only  of  industry,  but  of  all 
social  affairs,  so  that  when  the  organization  has  become 
universalized  it  can  perform  all  the  necessary  func- 
tions of  social  control  now  exercised  by  the  state  in  its 
legislative,  executive  and  judicial  capacities.  This  uni- 
versal organization  of  the  workers  will  then  displace 
the  state,  government  and  politics  in  the  present  sense; 
private  ownership,  privilege  and  exploitation  will  be  for- 
ever abolished.  The  one  big  union  will  have  become  the 
state,  the  government,  the  supreme  organic  and  func- 
tional expression  of  society;  its  rules  and  decisions  will 
be  the  law. 

The  decentralizers  look  forward  to  what  they  call  a 
free  industrial  society.  Each  local  group  of  workers  is 
to  be  a  law  to  itself.  They  are  to  organize  as  they  please. 
The  present  industrial  and  social  arrangements  are  to 
be  overthrown  simply  by  making  it  unprofitable  for  the 
employing  class  to  own  and  operate  industries.  Future 
society  is  to  consist  of  independent  groups  of  workers 


i68  TRADE  UNIONISM 

freely  exchanging  their  products.  The  proper  propor- 
tions of  investment  and  production,  the  ratio  of  exchange 
of  goods,  etc.,  will  automatically  be  determined,  just  as 
they  are  under  competitive  industry,  only  then  the  com- 
petition will  be  between  groups  of  workers,  instead  of 
between  individuals.  Universal  knowledge  and  a  su- 
perior morality,  which  will  spring  up  as  soon  as  capi- 
talist society  is  abolished,  will  take  the  place  of  our 
present  complicated  system  of  social  control  and  do 
away  with  the  necessity  of  government  in  the  present 
sense. 

Beyond  this,  the  characteristic  theories,  policies  and 
methods  of  the  two  varieties  of  quasi  anarchistic  union- 
ists, in  general,  agree.  The  central  purpose  of  all  their 
efforts,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  overthrow  of  the  capi- 
talist system,  and  the  establishment  of  working-class 
social  control.  But  this  cannot  be  accomplished  by  a 
gradual  process  of  immediate  gains  in  the  form  of  bet- 
ter wages,  shorter  hours,  better  working  conditions,  etc. 
The  end  is  retarded  rather  than  advanced  by  such  im- 
mediate concessions  and  advantages  because  these  tend 
to  make  the  workers  conservative,  satisfied  with  the  pres- 
ent system,  and  those  who  gain  most  become  selfish  and 
detached  in  interest  from  the  whole  working  class.  The 
main  immediate  object  of  all  their  efforts  is  not  ma- 
terial results,  but  agitation,  education,  a  rousing  of  the 
workers  and  employers  to  mutual  hatred  and  bitterness. 
Hence  they  count  everything  in  the  way  of  a  fight, 
whether  won  or  lost,  as  a  gain.  To  them,  no  strike  can 
be  lost,  since  the  very  failure,  in  the  common  way  of 
looking  at  it,  is  the  surest  way  to  secure  the  psychological 
results  they  are  after.  Therefore,  they  are  always  alert 
to  take  every  opportunity  for  fighting,  whatever  the  odds 


Revolutionary  unionism        169 

against  them.  Their  motto  is  anything  to  stir  up  trouble 
between  the  workers  and  the  ruling  class.  A  contest  with 
the  police  over  free  speech  or  with  the  church  is  as 
good  an  opportunity  as  a  strike.  And  they  count  all 
things  as  good  that  may  irritate  the  employers  or  au- 
thorities to  action  against  them.  Trouble  is  what  they 
thrive  on. 

The  revolution,  then,  must  be  the  work  of  the  un- 
skilled— the  true  proletariat.  They  must  be  roused  and 
united  and  educated — the  whole  object  of  the  agitation 
is  this.  But  is  this  possible  when  we  consider  the  char- 
acter and  conditions  of  these  unskilled  workers?  The 
great  mass  of  them  are  untrained,  unintelligent,  cowed, 
subservient,  satisfied  with  things  as  they  are  because  they 
know  nothing  better.  Get  them  together  and  there  is 
no  unanimity  of  ideas ;  poll  them  and  the  sodden  ma- 
jority would  overwhelmingly  outvote  the  alert,  revolu- 
tionary minority.  How,  then,  can  the  unskilled  prole- 
tariat create  the  revolution  ?  The  quasi  anarchistic  union- 
ists answer  with  what  is  perhaps  their  most  distinctive 
and  pregnant  idea,  the  theory  of  the  militant  minority. 
They  are  no  levelers;  they  do  not  propose  to  poll 
the  proletariat;  they  do  not  really  believe  in  democracy. 
Throughout  the  history  of  the  world,  they  will  tell  you, 
everything  has  been  achieved,  every  advance  has  been 
pushed  through,  by  the  intelligent  minority.  Every 
revolution  has  thus  been  accomplished.  The  mass  of 
men  in  all  grades  of  society  are  unintelligent,  but  they 
are  imitators.  .  Given  a  sufficiently  intelligent  and  active 
minority  which  understands  this  and  does  not  allow  it- 
self to  be  swamped  by  democratic  ideals  and  arrange- 
ments, and  the  mass  can  be  roused  to  action  and  be  made 
to  work  its  will.    The  quasi  anarchistic  unionists  are  the 


170  TRADE  UNIONISM 

intelligent  minority  of  the  workers.  The  proletariat  is 
their  instrument.  Their  task  is  to  tune  it  up  to  the 
revolutionary  pitch,  and  use  it  as  a  revolutionary  force. 
But  how?  Obviously  the  way  is  to  stimulate  a  constant 
and  ever-growing  f  ht  bet  een  the  pro-^tariat  and  their 
enemies.  This  cai  be  ^  le  partly  by  general  agita- 
tion, but  the  fight  must  De  conducted  also  on  the  in- 
dustrial field.  And  how  best  conduct  this  industrial 
fight? 

Here  the  quasi  anarchistic  unionists  are  moved  partly 
by  theory  and  partly  by  the  necessities  of  the  situation 
On  the  basis  of  theory  alone,  the  thing  is  not  to  work  pri- 
marily for  material  gains.  Such  gains,  we  have  seen,  put 
the  instrument  out  of  tune,  relax  the  strings.  Hence 
the  old-fashioned  strike  is  not  appropriate.  And,  beyond 
this,  necessity  makes  it  an  impossible  weapon.  The  old- 
fashioned  strike  is  essentially  a  trial  of  financial  strength 
between  the  employers  and  the  workers.  Its  success  also 
requires  sustained  cooperative  effort  on  the  part  fl<" 
mass.     But  the  proletariat  has  no  financial  streng^'  I 

cannot  be  held  to  its  task  for  long  periods.  The 
nary  strike  then  is  out  of  the  question  as  a  revolutionary 
weapon.  If  it  succeeds  it  weakens  the  revolutionary 
spirit  of  the  workers;  if  it  fails  it  strengthens  the  em- 
ployers. A  weapon,  then,  must  be  devised  which  shall 
keep  alive  the  revolutionary  spirit,  be  inexpensive  to  the 
workers,  require  no  sustained  cooperation,  and  weaken 
the  employers.  Here,  finally,  we  reach  the  raison  d'etre 
of  the  great  industrial  weapons  of  the  quasi  anarchistic 
unionists — the  Intermittenr  strike  and  sabotage.  They 
keep  the  workers  and  employers  constantly  embroiled  in 
a  way  to  arouse  mutual  bitterness  and  hatred.  They 
are  inexpensive  to  the  workers;  the  intermittent  strike 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  171 

does  not  demand  continuous  cooperation  over  long  pe- 
riods, while  sabotage  need  not  require  cooperation  at  all ; 
it  can  be  carried  on  by  the  individual  alone.  They  hit 
the  employer  at  his  most  vulnerable  point  by  making  it 
unprofitable  foi.him  to  op  'te.  "  'ence  the  great  in- 
dustrial slogan  is,  "Strike  c.j  the  jA"  But  all  these 
methods  we  have  mentioned  arc  not  the  ultimate  means 
of  the  quasi  anarchistic  unionists.  They  are  but  the 
means  to  the  means  for  the  final  end.  Agitation  of  all 
sorts,  the  intermittent  strike,  sabotage  and  violence,^'* 
nave  the  primary  purpose  of  developing  solidarity  among 
the  proletariat  which  will  make  possible  ultimately  the 
general  strike  that  shall  finally  overthrow  capitalism,  and 
of  educating  the  workers  to  a  capacity  for  the  conduct  of 
social  aflfairs. 

There  is  no  way  of  arriving  at  even  a  moderately  ac- 

^curate  estimate  of  the  strength  of  revolutionary  union- 

',:>j  1  Jn  America.    As  has  been  seen,  most  socialist  union- 

.  j^are   scattered   through   nonrevolutionary   organiza- 

J  This  is  true  to  a  lesser  extent  of  quasi  anarchis- 

,tjc  unionists.  Unions  keep  no  records  of  character  of 
membership.  They  would  not  give  it  out  if  they  did, 
and  the  records  would  not  be  worth  anything  if  given 
out.  The  national  officers  of  the  socialist  party  refuse 
to  estimate.  In  the  19 12  convention  of  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor,  the  socialist  candidate  for  presi- 
dent polled  5,073  out  of  a  total  of  17,047  votes  cast. 
Estimating  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  member- 
ship at  2,000,000,  the  socialistic  membership,  if  this  vote 

^'^  But  note  that  this  is  said  only  of  the  quasi  anarchistic, 
revolutionary  unionists.  The  socialistic  revolutionary  union- 
ists, who  are  by  far  the  majority  in  this  country,  altogether 
repudiate  violence,  sabotage,  etc. 


\^2  TRAJDE  UNIONISM 

were  indicative,  would  number  846,000,  or  forty-two  per 
cent. 

But  a  vote  of  unions  one  way  or  another  is  no  indi- 
cation of  the  strength  of  internal  factions.  The  socialist 
party  vote  is  somewhere  near  thirty  per  cent  as  large  as 
the  estimated  number  of  trade  unionists,  but  it  is  to  a 
considerable  extent  a  nonunionist  vote.  The  best  we  can 
say  is  that  socialist  unionists  are  a  fairly  large  and  ap- 
parently growing  minority.  The  quasi  anarchistic  union- 
ists are  probably  mostly  in  separate  organizations,  but  no 
accurate  figures  can  be  obtained  of  these.  The  Industrial 
Workers  of  the  World  claim  to  have  issued  cards  to 
something  over  200,000  since  its  establishment.  The 
Syndicalist  League  is  only  a  handful,  if  it  exists.  It  is 
possible  that  all  revolutionary  unionists  combined  in  this 
country  number  perhaps  one-third  of  the  organized  work- 
ers, or  in  the  neighborhood  of  800,000.  Lacking  statis- 
tics of  its  growth,  the  only  way  we  can  discuss  the 
prospects  of  revolutionary  unionism  is  in  the  terms  of 
its  causes  and  the  character  of  its  adherents. 

In  attempting  to  account  for  revolutionary  unionism, 
stress  has  ordinarily  been  laid  almost  entirely  on  indus- 
trial conditions  and  forces.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that, 
with  the  development  of  modern  industry  under  the 
stimulus  of  machinery  and  the  machine  process,  the  re- 
lationships between  employers  and  workers  are  becom- 
ing remote  and  impersonal,  and  each  class  is  coming  to 
be  subjected  to  a  different  environment  and  is  thus  de- 
veloping different  sets  of  ideals  and  interests.  To  those 
who  accept  this  theory,  class  conflict  and  the  growth  of 
class  conflict  alike  are  inevitable.  Revolutionary  union- 
ism is  one  aspect  of  this  conflict  based  on  industrial  con- 
ditions.    It  is  bound  to  exist  and  bound  to  develop 


REVOLUTIONARY  UNIONISM  173 

rapidly  in  this  country  now  that  our  free  land  is  ex- 
hausted, and  that  in  other  respects  the  opportunities  for 
escape  from  the  working  class  are  being  cut  off.  There 
is  a  strong  element  of  truth  in  this  explanation  and  pre- 
diction, especially  as  applied  to  socialistic  unionism.  On 
the  other  hand,  economic  conditions  alone  cannot  ac- 
count for  revolutionary  unionism.  This  is  evidenced  by 
the  fact  that  in  the  same  trades  and  industries,  and 
notably  in  the  same  unions,  we  find  both  conservative 
business  and  revolutionary  unionists.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  revolutionary  unionism,  especially  as  regards 
the  quasi  anarchistic  variety,  is  largely  a  matter  of  in- 
dividual and  racial  temperament. 

To  judge  of  the  outlook  for  revolutionary  unionism 
in  this  country,  we  must  consider  both  our  temperamental 
and  environmental  situation  and  tendencies.  A  large 
proportion  of  our  organized  workers  are  probably  tem- 
peramentally conservative  and  would  never  become  revo- 
lutionary unionists  no  matter  what  the  industrial  de- 
velopment. A  growing  portion  of  the  workers — largely 
as  the  result  of  our  recent  Immigration — are  tempera- 
mentally radical.  In  so  far  as  they  become  unionists  at 
all  they  are  bound  to  be  revolutionaries.  Between  these 
extremes  are  the  floaters,  the  negative  mass,  perhaps  the 
largest  proportion  of  the  workers.  They  will  be  swayed 
by  their  associates  and  by  Industrial  and  political  condi- 
tions. As  skilled  workers  they  are  likely  to  be  conserva- 
tive; as  unskilled,  revolutionary.  In  times  of  prosperity 
they  will  become  satisfied  and  temperate;  in  times  of 
stress,  radical.  Political  disability  and  casual  work,  such 
as  the  migratory  worker  suffers,  will  draw  them  into  the 
revolutionary  camp.  Reforms — workmen's  compensa- 
tion, health  and  safety  legislation,  old-age  pensions — • 


174  TRADE  UNIONISM 

will  tend  to  make  them  supporters  of  the  existing  sys- 
tem. Militant  action  by  employers'  associations  and 
trusts,  and  imfavorable  legislative  action  and  court  de- 
cisions will  make  militants  of  them.  Speaking,  then,  of 
revolutionary  unionism  as  a  whole,  and  not  of  syndical- 
ism or  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World,  we  shall 
see  more  rather  than  less  of  it.  It  is  bound  to  develop 
with  unregulated  immigration  and  the  lack  of  a  com- 
prehensive and  thoroughgoing  program  of  reform.  It 
is  one  of  the  big  problems  of  our  time. 

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*i76  TRADE  UNIONISM 

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Why  Strikes  are  Lost. 

Working-class  Revolution. 

Boyle,  J.  "Syndicalism,  The  Latest  Manifestation  of 
Labor's  Unrest,"  Forum,  48:223-233   (1912). 

Brissenden,  Paul  F.  The  Launching  of  the  I.  W.  W., 
University  of  Calif.  Pub.  in  Economics,  vol.  4,  No.  i. 

Brooks,  John  Graham.  American  Syndicalism,  The  I. 
W.   W.    (1913). 

Deland,  L.  F.  "The  Lawrence  Strike,"  Atlantic  Month- 
ly, 109:694-705   (1912). 

Dimnet,  E.  "Syndicalism  and  Its  Philosophy,"  Atlan- 
tic Monthly,   in:    17-30    (1913). 

Estey,  James  A.     Rez'olutionary  Syndicalism   (1913). 

GoMPERS,  Samuel.  "Industrial  Unionism,"  American  Fed- 
erationist,  (May,  191 2). 

.     "Syndicalism,  Partyism  and  Unionism,"  American 

Federationist.      (May,    1912). 

Kirk.  National  Labor  Federations  in  the  United  States, 
Part  I,  "The  American  Labor  Union,"  and  Part  III,  "In- 
dustrial Unions." 

Levine,  Louis.  The  Labor  Movement  in  France  (1912), 
chap.  V,  "The  Doctrine  of  Revolutionary  Syndicalism." 

.  "Direct  Action:  The  Philosophy  of  the  Labor  Strug- 
gles of  Today,"  Forum,  47:577-88  (1912). 

Walling,  W.  E.  "Industrialism  or  Revolutionary  Un- 
ionism," The  New  Reviezv   (Jan.   11,   1913). 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  LEADERS  AND  THE  RANK  AND  FILE 

While  unionism  in  its  ultimate  effect  on  industrial 
organization  and  conduct  of  industry  is  democratic,  in 
the  sense  of  its  effort  to  take  from  the  hands  of  em- 
ployers autocratic  feudalistic  control  and  put  a  share 
of  the  control  and  conduct  into  the  hands  of  the  work- 
ers— tending  to  democratic  industrial  revolution — union- 
ism in  its  own  organization  and  conduct  is  hardly  to  be 
called  democratic.  At  least  this  is  true  of  the  business 
union  type  and  successful  unionism.  Power  in  both 
cases  centers  in  the  hands  of  officers  and  leaders.  They 
determine  immediate  policies  and  tactics  to  a  very  large 
extent.  And  this  seems  to  be  the  natural  and  neces- 
sary outcome  of  the  situation.  While  unionism  as  a 
whole  is  the  spontaneous  outcome  of  the  conditions, 
needs  and  problems  of  the  workers,  the  rank  and  file  in 
general  are  not  in  a  condition  to  formulate  methods  for 
meeting  needs  or  solving  problems,  and,  apart  from  the 
direction  of  competent  leaders,  have  not  the  intelligence 
to  combat  employers  successfully.  Therefore,  union- 
ism, as  a  fact,  in  its  constructive  aspects  is  taught  to  the 
rank  and  file  by  the  leaders.  Only  when  the  union  is 
weak  and  the  leaders  unsuccessful  do  the  rank  and  file 
take  control. 

In  general  there  are  two  classes  among  the  rank  and 
fi,l^.    The  bread  and  butter  unionists  are  ordinary  work- 

177 


178  TRADE  UNIONISM 

ers  chained  to  the  wheel,  the  bench,  or  the  counter,  good 
men,  but  without  leisure  or  education  or  experience  for 
much  thought  or  union  action.  They  are  apt  to  regard 
the  union — when  all  is  going  well — as  a  matter  of  course, 
or  an  instrument  for  food  and  shelter.  While  meetings 
are  held  regularly  and  members  are  free  to  go  and  de- 
termine the  conduct  of  affairs,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in 
time  of  peace,  they  are  lax  about  attendance.  They  are 
content  to  leave  the  running  of  affairs  and  the  thinking 
to  the  officers.  They  are,  by  virtue  of  character  and  cir- 
cumstance, pretty  much  clay,  although  at  times  very 
stubborn  clay,  in  the  hands  of  the  officers  in  the  ordinary 
administration  of  affairs.  It  really  cannot  be  otherwise ; 
the  workers,  untrained  and  exhausted  by  daily  toil,  can- 
not keep  track  of  affairs.  The  officers  are  specialists — 
good  talkers — and  the  rank  and  file  must  trust  them. 
What  they  demand  of  leaders  is  that  they  "deliver  the 
goods,"  in  terms  of  high  wages,  short  hours,  and  good 
conditions.  So  long  as  they  do  this  they  do  not  care  to 
interfere.  They  are  not  surprised  if  occasionally  a 
leader  is  crooked,  or  gets  his  "rake  off."  When  he  fails 
to  "deliver  the  goods,"  they  turn  on  him  with  every  con- 
ceivable denunciation  and  rend  him.  Then  indeed  they 
are  likely  to  run  amuck,  overbear  the  authority  of  the 
officers,  and  commit  all  sorts  of  acts  in  violation  of  con- 
stitutional authority.  The  second  class  are  the  radical 
unionists,  always  suspicious  and  at  constant  war  with 
the  officials. 

There  is  a  real  contest  between  the  leaders  and  the  rank 
and  file,  especially  in  the  case  of  business  unionism.  So 
long  as  the  union  is  small  and  the  officers  work  at  the 
bench,  there  is  no  friction,  but  when  the  union  grows  and 
the  officers  give  up  work  and  become  paid  officials  and  de- 


LEADERS  AND  RANK  AND  FILE        179 

vote  their  whole  time  to  official  duties,  then  friction  be- 
tween the  leaders  and  the  rank  and  file  almost  inevitably 
arises.  The  farther  up  we  go  in  officialdom  the  less  sym- 
pathy and  mutual  understanding  we  find.  The  leaders  for 
the  most  part  reciprocate  the  feeling  of  the  rank  and  file. 
Their  attitude  is  likely  to  be  one  of  contempt  mixed 
with  fear.  One  trade  union  leader  says  that  the  rank 
and  file  are  ignorant,  have  to  be  wheedled,  and,  when  that 
fails,  driven  by  physical  force  if  necessary.  Even  lead- 
ers who  pride  themselves  on  keeping  close  to  the  man  at 
the  bench  speak  contemptuously  of  the  crowd.  "The 
successful  leader,"  one  of  them  says,  "must  be  a  leader 
both  intellectually  and  physically.  He  must  be  able  to 
face  a  crowd  that  suspects  him  and  be  able  to  convince 
either  by  argument  or  force.  He  must  be  able  to  out- 
force  any  opposition  from  the  'dee,  dis,  dat'  rank  and 
file." 

The  causes  of  the  contest  between  the  leaders  and  the 
rank  and  file  are  partly  inherent  in  the  situation.  The 
rank  and  file  are  ignorant  and  impulsive;  they  do  not 
know  anything  about  business  and  market  conditions  and 
trade.  They  think  all  business  is  making  enormous  prof- 
its, and  that  there  is  no  limit  to  the  amount  they  can 
squeeze  out  for  themselves  if  strong  enough.  Some- 
times they  suffer  until  beyond  endurance  or  are  aroused 
by  leaders  and  then  break  out,  wildly  demanding  the  im- 
possible. Their  environment  tends  to  make  them  radi- 
cal; they  have  nothing  to  lose — no  responsibility.  All 
the  conditions,  on  the  other  hand,  tend  to  make  the  lead- 
ers conservative.  Responsibility  sobers  them.  As  soon 
as  they  engage  in  negotiations  they  realize  the  power  of 
the  employers,  and  the  limitations  in  the  ability  of  em- 
ployers to  meet  demands.    Moreover,  when  the  leaders 


i8o  TRADE  UNIONISM 

get  away  from  the  bench,  their  environment  becomes 
more  of  the  character  of  the  employer's  than  of  the 
worker's.  They  no  longer  deal  with  the  physical,  but 
with  the  spiritual,  in  negotiations  and  in  the  handling  of 
men.  Almost  inevitably  they  develop  something  of  the 
employers'  viewpoint  and  feeling,  and  thus  become  un- 
able to  see  things  from  the  workers'  angle  and  to  feel 
with  and  for  the  workers  as  before.  The  worker  is 
something  to  be  manipulated.  But  partly,  also,  the  con- 
test is  due  to  the  character  of  the  men  who  get  into 
power  in  the  unions.  Very  generally  it  is  not  the  good 
worker,  but  the  big,  jolly,  hail  fellows  well  met,  natural 
born  politicians,  possessed  of  considerable  administra- 
tive ability,  men  with  the  latent  instinct  of  the  boss  and 
employer,  men  who  love  power  for  its  own  sake.  More- 
over, the  leader  who  rises  from  the  rank  and  file  at  once 
encounters  temptations  hard  to  withstand.  Many  go 
wrong  because  they  cannot  stand  prosperity.  The  sud- 
den release  from  the  bench,  from  the  machine  process, 
unsteadies  them;  they  become  dissipated  and  dishonest; 
they  may  fall  victims  to  the  "mahogany  table,"  and  to 
what  is  on  it.  There  is,  too,  a  constant  drain  of  leaders 
by  corruption,  and  by  politics.  Here  is  a  great  weak- 
ness of  unionism — it  dies  at  the  top. 

How  is  it  that  the  leaders  get  and  retain  their  power? 
In  the  first  place,  the  rank  and  file  have  learned  by  ex- 
perience that  if  they  want  "more  now"  they  must  sub- 
mit to  leadership.  They  have  somewhat  learned  the 
lesson  of  democracy  and  its  inefficiency.  As  one  union 
leader  put  it,  "The  successful  officer  tends  to  stay  in  of- 
fice indefinitely,  and  grows  more  competent  and  more 
powerful  with  service.  As  a  democracy  no  union  would 
last  six  minutes."     Secondly,  it  is  somewhat  like  shak- 


LEADERS  AND  RANK  AND  FILE        i8l 

ing  a  dish  of  beans,  the  largest  come  to  the  top.  The 
natural  leaders  tend  to  get  the  offices;  they  are  in  gen- 
eral the  husky,  strong-armed  fellows.  One  keen  trade 
union  observer  says  that  the  workers  trust  big  men 
because  they  have  come  to  think  in  physical  terms,  but 
they  must  have  brains  too.  Either  they  are  like  the 
cunning  politician  or,  lacking  the  latter's  qualities,  they 
have  superior  intelligence  and  moral  courage.  Thirdly, 
once  well  fixed  in  office,  the  leader  has  every  advantage 
over  the  rank  and  file  and  can  make  them  practically  de- 
pendent upon  him.  The  worker  in  a  negotiation  can- 
not present  his  case;  he  is  no  match  for  the  employer; 
he  is  dependent  absolutely  upon  the  labor  leader  for  this. 
Moreover,  the  longer  the  leader  is  in  office,  the  more 
proficient  he  becomes  in  the  performance  of  his  peculiar 
and,  to  the  worker,  absolutely  necessary  functions.  He 
becomes  more  and  more  the  possessor  of  specialized 
knowledge  and  power.  Sometimes,  too,  leadership  is  re- 
tained by  force.  Everything  thus  conspires  to  support 
the  leaders  against  the  rank  and  file,  as  long  as  conditions 
are  good,  as  long  as  they  can  "deliver  the  goods."  All 
this  goes  far  to  explain  the  indifference  of  the  rank  and 
file  and  the  strong  antisocial  aims  and  actions  of  some 
unions.  Here  many  forces  tend  to  raise  to  leadership 
those  of  the  unidealistic  type  who  are  forced  to  "make 
good,"  with  conditions  tending  to  make  them  take  the 
easiest  methods.  These  remarks  bring  out  one  of  the 
hardest  problems  of  unionism,  that  of  democracy  versus 
efficiency.^ 

^  The  use  of  the  referendum  in  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor  has  shown  that  there  frequently  result  delay,  fac- 
tionalism, and  indifference  on  the  part  of  the  rank  and  file; 
and  it   is  exceedingly  expensive.     The  English  unions   found 


i82  TRADE  UNIONISM 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  tales  of  the  walking 
delegate,  which  picture  him  as  an  autocrat  who  goes 
about  browbeating  employers  and  ordering  out  cringing 
workmen  at  his  own  sweet  will  and  for  his  own  profit. 
Contradictory  as  are  the  statements  of  unionists  and 
business  men  concerning  the  business  agent  or  the  walk- 
ing delegate,  the  available  evidence  seems  to  indicate 
that  there  is  much  truth  on  both  sides  of  the  controversy. 
Ordinarily  and  normally  the  unionists  are  right  in  de- 
scribing the  walking  delegate  as  merely  a  useful  and 
harmless  local  executive  officer.  Under  constitutional 
conditions,  the  creation,  powers,  and  duties  of  the  walk- 
ing delegate  may  be  summarized  thus :  He  is  simply  a 
local  officer  elected  by  popular  vote,  for  a  term  ranging 
from  three  months  to  a  year,  usually  holding  office  for 
six  months.  He  is  the  general  executive  officer  of  the 
local.  His  customary  duties  are  to  act  as  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  union  in  dealing  with  the  employer ;  as 
such  to  see  that  union  rules  are  not  violated  by  employers, 
to  present  grievances  to  the  employer,  and  generally  to 
act  as  go-between  for  men  and  masters ;  to  maintain  dis- 
cipline and  to  look  after  the  financial  affairs  and  general 
interests  of  the  union;  to  see  that  members  attend  the 
meetings,  pay  their  dues,  and  keep  in  general  the  union 
rules;  to  find  employment  for  union  men;  and  to  solicit 

that  they  had  no  time  or  money  for  anything  else  when  they 
used  it.  The  causes  for  this  situation  seem  to  be  that  the 
rank  and  file  do  not  understand  intelligently  important  ques- 
tions which  come  up;  that  they  act  as  a  result  of  emotion 
rather  than  judgment.  Radical  leaders  can  stir  them  up  to 
act  unwisely.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  rank  and  file  are  al- 
ways in  favor  of  economy,  and  the  attempt  to  have  pure 
democracy  has  often  resulted  in  greater  control  by  leaders  than 
under  representative  government. 


LEADERS  AND  RANK  AND  FILE        183 

men  to  join  the  union.  In  performing  these  duties  the 
walking  delegate  is  constitutionally  under  the  absolute 
control  of  the  local  or  district  council;  all  his  powers  are 
delegated  to  him  by  popular  vote,  and  all  his  acts  must 
be  reported  to  the  union  for  popular  sanction.  He  is 
legally  the  general  servant  of  the  union,  and  legally  can 
do  no  act  for  it  on  his  own  responsibility.  The  neces- 
sity or  desirability  of  such  a  local  union  officer,  especially 
in  his  capacity  of  go-between  for  men  and  masters,  is 
apparent  when  we  consider  that  working  members  of  the 
union  are  fully  occupied  in  their  manual  tasks  and  that 
no  employee  can  go  to  his  employer.  This  gives  a  clear 
and  undoubtedly  true  idea  of  what  the  business  agent 
normally  is,  by  whom  he  is  controlled,  what  he  can  do, 
and  what  he  cannot  do  under  constitutional  circum- 
stances. But  evidence  also  shows  that  the  walking  dele- 
gate is  likely  to  become  an  extra-constitutional  boss. 
This  is  shown  equally  by  positive  testimony  of  what  he 
sometimes  becomes  and  what  he  has  actually  done. 

Theoretically,  then,  the  walking  delegate  is  what  the 
unionists  picture  him,  a  harmless  and  useful  executive 
officer.  Practically,  he  may  become  what  the  employer 
pictures  him,  a  supreme  and  irresponsible  ruler,  and  the 
irresponsible  ruler  is  the  result  of  a  simple  process  of 
evolution  from  the  useful  servant.  Is  the  result  acci- 
dent or  does  it  represent  an  inherent  tendency  ?  It  seems 
that  under  certain  conditions  it  represents  an  inherent 
tendency,  that  it  is  the  natural  outcome  of  the  peculiar 
duties  of  the  walking  delegate  and  the  peculiar  situation 
of  the  rank  and  file. 

The  peculiar  duties  of  the  walking  delegate  are  such 
as  to  give  him  easy  ascendency  over  the  rank  and  file. 
He  looks  out  for  employment  for  them;  his  duties  lead 


i84  TRADE  UNIONISM 

him  over  the  whole  local  field  of  labor,  he  knows  where 
jobs  are  and  how  to  get  them,  he  can  keep  a  man  at 
employment,  or  he  can  keep  him  from  it;  he  looks  after 
the  finances  of  the  union,  he  sees  that  the  members  pay 
their  dues,  or  he  can  make  it  easy  for  them ;  he  presents 
grievances  to  the  employer  and  can  argue  the  case,  for 
he  is  not  dependent  on  the  "boss"  and  does  not  fear  him ; 
he  can  help  one  to  agreeable  conditions  of  work  or  he 
can  leave  him  unassisted  and  unprotected.  Clearly  he 
is  a  man  to  keep  on  the  right  side  of,  and  to  keep  "in" 
with.  He  is  therefore  bound  to  become  powerful  if  he 
has  ordinary  judgment  and  finesse.  To  be  sure,  his  term 
of  power  is  brief  and  the  union  can  turn  him  out  if  it 
wants  to,  constitutionally.  Practically  it  cannot  and  will 
not,  once  he  begins  to  consolidate  his  power.  When  the 
union  thinks  of  choosing  his  successor,  there  is  no  one 
in  the  union  who  can  do  his  work  half  so  well  as  he. 
He  is  acquainted  with  the  whole  field  of  operations,  and 
he  has  an  accumulation  of  knowledge  that  the  ordinary 
worker,  held  to  his  bench  or  to  his  machine  for  nine 
or  ten  hours  a  day,  cannot  have  acquired.  These  or- 
dinary workers  naturally  come  more  and  more  to  rely 
on  his  judgment.  Moreover,  he  has  learned  how  to  deal 
with  men  in  general  and  how  to  deal  with  employers  in 
particular;  he  has  learned  how  to  talk  and  to  persuade. 
In  short,  he  is  related  to  the  ordinary  workers  in  the 
trade  as  the  ward  boss  is  to  the  average  voter.  He  is 
a  specialist  in  labor  politics,  with  favors  to  give  and  to 
withhold. 

He  is  in  a  position,  then,  naturally  to  become  a  local 
labor  boss,  if  he  so  desires,  unless  he  is  checked  by 
some  outside  authority.  The  local  is,  however,  jealous 
of  its  autonomy.    Its  officers  are  its  officers,  and  not  the 


LEADERS  AND  RANK  AND  FILE        1^5 

officers  of  the  national  organization.  To  be  sure,  there 
are  elaborate  regulations  that  define  its  relations  to  the 
central  body,  but,  after  all,  they  represent  loose  federa- 
tive bonds.  The  essential  thing  is  that  the  walking  dele- 
gate does  not  have  to  take  his  orders  from  or  report  to 
the  national  officers.  He  is  responsible  not  to  his  su- 
perior officers  but  to  his  inferiors — the  rank  and  file  who 
elect  him.  This  means  that,  if  he  is  so  disposed,  he  need 
not  be  responsible  to  anyone.  If  he  is  a  self-seeking 
demagogue,  he  naturally  evolves  into  the  labor  boss. 
And  the  conditions  are  also  favorable  to  bringing  for- 
ward this  kind  of  man.  It  is  the  man  who  does  not  love 
his  work,  who  is  astute  and  smooth,  who  will  naturally 
work  into  this  office  in  a  group  made  up  for  the  most 
part  of  hard  workers  and  slow  thinkers.  The  making  of 
the  demagogic  tyrant  who  orders  strikes  against  the  in- 
terests of  employers  and  men,  then,  is  a  simple  and  nat- 
ural process.  A  good  talker  gets  his  friends  to  vote  him 
into  office,  he  learns  the  "ropes,"  he  gathers  about  him 
a  clique  of  radical  henchmen,  an  inner  ring;  they  vote 
him  unlimited  power,  there  is  no  superior  authority,  he 
cuts  loose,  and  you  have  a  little  example  of  the  old 
Greek  tyranny  that  rose  on  the  ruins  of  the  democracy. 
The  two  parallel  very  well.  Of  course  this  evolution  of 
the  business  agent  from  the  harmless  to  the  harmful 
type  does  not  always,  nor  perhaps  usually,  take  place. 
The  most  we  can  say  is  that  it  is  apt  to  take  place  and 
we  have  tried  to  show  the  reasons. 

The  ordinary  conservative  business  unionist  carries 
about  with  him  two  very  distinct  and  perhaps  contradic- 
tory conceptions  of  unionism  and  attitudes  toward  so- 
ciety. When  he  Is  dealing  with  trade  matters,  he  is  or- 
dinarily a  bread  and  butter  unionist,  a  fairly  sober,  mat- 


i86  TRADE  UNIONISM 

ter  of  fact,  unemotional,  hard-headed  fellow  who  ac- 
cepts the  present  system  on  the  whole  but  means  to  get 
the  most  he  can  out  of  it  in  the  way  of  higher  wages, 
shorter  hours  and  better  conditions.  As  such,  his  craft 
interest  stands  first;  it  is  the  welfare  of  his  craft  which 
he  is  looking  out  for.  He  is  conscious  of  little  or  no 
class  interest  or  feeling.  But  when  a  matter  comes  up 
which  is  free  from  particular  craft  interest  and  concerns 
what  he  conceives  to  be  employing  class  oppression  and 
interference  with  his  rights  and  business,  such  as  the 
use  of  the  injunction,  damage  suits  against  unions,  the 
use  of  strikebreakers,  or  the  calling  out  of  the  police  or 
militia  to  prevent  picketing  or  violence,  then  this  hard- 
headed,  conservative,  business-unionist  is  apt  to  be  sud- 
denly transformed  into  a  wildly  emotional  fighter,  full 
of  class  interest  and  class  hatred.  This  lasts  until  either 
a  bread  and  butter  proposition  comes  up  again  or  until 
someone  calls  his  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  is  social- 
istic, when  he  as  quickly  changes  to  the  hard-headed 
business  unionist  again.  This  is  characteristic  of  the 
leaders  also.  I  have  seen  the  transformation  many  times 
in  labor  meetings.  It  is  most  significant  because  it  means 
that  a  general  attempt  to  coerce  unionism  means  turn- 
ing it  into  a  class-conscious  revolutionary  movement. 

In  the  unions  there  have  gone  on  constant  struggles 
for  control  between  the  business  union  element  and  the 
socialist  or  revolutionary  element.  This  contest  used  to 
be  open;  it  is  now  more  or  less  subtle,  but  it  exists  just 
the  same.  Generally,  the  good  business  craft  unionist  is 
intolerant  of  socialism.  The  reason  he  gives  is  that  he 
wants  something  now,  and  this  is  not  to  be  secured  by 
academic  discussions  of  a  mythical  cooperative  common- 
wealth in  the  future.     This  is  not,  however,  the  whole 


LEADERS  AND  RANK  AND  FILE       187 

reason.  The  socialists  have  from  the  beginning  stood 
for  industrial  unionism,  and  they  have  made  it  their  mis- 
sion to  preach  this  in  season  and  out  of  season  to  the 
craft  unionists.  They  have  joined  the  unions,  got  them- 
selves elected  delegates  to  central  bodies  and  conventions 
and  have  used  the  discussion  of  every  union  problem, 
every  difference  between  unions,  every  union  failure  or 
disaster,  to  point  out  with  contempt  the  weakness  of 
craft  organization  and  to  preach  industrial  unionism 
and  party  socialism.  This  has  made  most  craft  union- 
ists, however  revolutionary  at  heart,  violent  haters  of 
socialism  in  its  objective  party  form.  Recently,  the 
cooler  headed  socialists  have  seen  that  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor  is  normally  tending  toward  industrial- 
ism and  that  it  was  their  fiery  efforts  more  than  any- 
thing else  that  held  things  back.  They  have  therefore 
become  very  quiet  and  conciliatory.  But  the  socialists 
are  there  in  the  unions  and  the  sentiment  is  growing  fast 
even  among  business  unionists. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

EMPLOYERS'  ASSOCIATIONS 

The  social  problem  of  unionism  cannot  be  understood 
through  a  study  of  unions  alone.  The  unions  are  but 
one  factor  in  a  great  struggle  going  on  which  involves 
the  fundamental  questions  of  social  rights  and  social 
welfare.  The  other  factor  is  the  employer,  especially 
employers  organized  into  associations  to  resist  the  efforts 
of  unionism.  Over  against  the  complex  organizations 
of  the  workers  are  the  equally  complex  and  perhaps  more 
extensive  and  more  powerful  organizations  of  employ- 
ers. To  grasp  the  problem  fully,  therefore,  to  get  the 
other  side  and  to  comprehend  the  situation  as  a  whole  we 
need  a  knowledge  of  the  employers'  organizations  cre- 
ated for  dealing  with,  and  especially  of  the  militant 
associations  organized  for  combating,  unions — their 
structure,  aims,  principles,  policies,  demands,  methods, 
and  attitudes ;  and  the  conditions  and  events  which  grow 
out  of  the  existence  of  these  two  great  organic  forces. 
The  contest  between  unionism  and  employers'  associa- 
tions has  been  largely  one  concerned  with  the  rights  of 
employers  and  of  workers  as  embodied  in  law.  As  a 
basis  for  understanding  it,  therefore,  as  well  as  the 
general  social  problem  of  unionism,  we  need  to  get  some 
idea  of  the  legal  status  of  unionism  and  the  legal  striv- 
ings of  both  sets  of  organizations.  This  aspect  of  the 
subject  will  follow  in  a  subsequent  chapter. 

1S8 


EMPLOYERS'  ASSOCIATIONS  189 

Structurally  and  functionally  the  employers'  associa- 
tions offer  a  striking  parallelism  to  the  trade  union  or- 
ganizations. In  point  of  structure  there  is,  paralleling 
the  local  craft  or  compound  craft  and  national  union  of 
the  workers,  the  local  craft  or  compound  craft  and  na- 
tional employers'  association.  The  Chicago  Team  Own- 
ers' Association  and  the  National  Stove  Founders'  De- 
fense Association  are  illustrations.  As  a  counterpart  to 
similar  trade  unions,  there  are  local,  state  and  national 
federations  of  employers,  as,  for  example,  the  Chicago 
Employers'  Association,  the  Illinois  Manufacturers'  As- 
sociation, and  the  National  Association  of  Manufactur- 
ers. Where  the  unions  have  developed  an  industrial 
type  of  organization,  the  employers  have  their  local,  dis- 
trict or  national  industrial  associations.  The  local  News- 
paper Publishers'  Association,  the  Illinois  Coal  Opera- 
tors, and  the  Interstate  Coal  Operators  are  in  point.  Fi- 
nally, as  a  counter-organization  to  the  general  labor  un- 
ion, there  are  general  alliances  and  citizens'  associations. 

Similarly,  from  the  standpoint  of  function,  business 
unionism  is  paralleled  by  a  type  of  employers'  associa- 
tion, represented  by  the  Stove  Founders'  Defense  Asso- 
ciation above  referred  to,  which  aims  at  collective  bar- 
gaining and  the  stability  of  conditions  obtained  through 
it.  The  National  Civic  Federation,  although  not  strictly 
an  employers'  association  but  generally  regarded  as  such, 
is  a  counterpart  to  uplift  unionism.  Militant  employers' 
associations,  extremely  conservative  and  bitterly  opposed 
to  unionism,  are  the  "revolutionary"  type  among  em- 
ployers. The  Metal  Trades'  Association  is  one  of  this 
group.  And,  lastly,  there  are  predatory  employers'  as- 
sociations, as  there  are  predatory  unions  to  be  found  in 
the  building  trades. 


190  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Following  upon  the  great  anthracite  coal  strike  of 
1902,  which  suddenly  brought  out  the  power  of  unionism 
to  paralyze  social  activity,  and  the  fact  that  unionism 
had  grown  stronger  than  the  employers,  the  latter  awoke 
to  the  need  of  better  defensive  organization  and  a  great 
growth  of  radical  or  militant  employers'  associations 
took  place.  The  immediate  aims  and  policies  of  the  em- 
ployers' associations  were  accordingly  directed  to  secur- 
ing mutual  aid  in  the  industrial  field,  rigid  enforcement 
of  laws  on  unions  through  the  courts  whenever  possible, 
and  new  legislation  curbing  the  unions.  Injunctions 
were  increasingly  sought  and  suits  instituted  against  un- 
ion workmen.  As  a  later  phase,  special  employers'  asso- 
ciations were  formed,  such  as  the  Anti-Boycott  League. 
The  purpose  of  this  organization  was  to  get  the  courts 
to  decide  that,  although  unions  were  voluntary  organi- 
zations, they  could  be  sued  for  damages  under  the  Sher- 
man Anti-Trust  law  as  combinations  in  restraint  of 
trade.  Success  along  this  line  was  calculated  to  cripple 
business  unionism,  for  business  unionism  succeeds  in  col- 
lective bargaining  only  because  it  can  threaten  to  strike 
and  it  can  strike  successfully  only  when  there  is  money 
laid  up  to  support  members  on  strike.  It  all  goes  back 
to  financial  resources  in  the  end.  Unions  have  under- 
stood all  this  and  for  this  reason  they  have  stood  out 
against  incorporation  because  they  want  to  do  things  in 
their  struggles  which  would  subject  them  to  suit  and  loss 
of  strike  funds  if  they  were  incorporated. 

At  the  present  time  the  methods  of  the  employers* 
associations,  more  especially  of  the  militant,  may  be 
summed  up  as  follows: 

I.  Effective  counter  organization;  employers  parallel 
the  union  structure,  trade  against  trade   (local,  district 


EMPLOYERS'  ASSOCIATIONS  191 

and  national),  city  against  city,  state  against  state,  na- 
tional against  national,  and  federation  against  federa- 
tion. 

2.  Uncompromising  war  on  the  closed  shop  by  assert- 
ing the  right  to  hire  and  fire,  to  pay  what  the  individual 
can  be  made  to  work  for,  and  therefore  to  destroy  uni- 
formity and  control  hours,  speed,  and  the  conditions  of 
employment  generally;  by  continuous  propaganda,  con- 
ventions, meetings,  literature  and  personal  solicitations, 
showing  the  tyranny  of  the  unions  under  closed  shop 
rule,  and  the  loss  and  waste  in  the  closed  shop  from  in- 
efficient workers  forced  by  the  union  upon  employers, 
from  loafing  on  the  job,  restrictions  on  output,  and  on 
apprenticeship;  showing  that  the  union  label  is  a  detri- 
ment rather  than  an  advantage  to  the  employer  using 
it;  urging  employers  not  to  use  goods  bearing  the  union 
label,  nor  to  patronize  any  concern  which  does;  and  op- 
posing the  union  label  on  publications  of  any  branch  of 
government. 

3.  The  expulsion  of  members  who  sign  closed  shop 
agreements,  with  forfeit  of  contributions  to  the  reserve 
fund. 

4.  Giving  finaijcial  aid  to  employers  in  trouble  because 
of  attempts  to  withstand  closed  shop  demands  or  to  estab- 
lish the  open  shop,  by  inducing  banks  to  refund  interest 
on  loans  during  strikes,  and  getting  owners  not  to  enforce 
penalties  on  failure  to  live  up  to  building  contracts. 
The  National  Metal  Trades  Association,  for  instance, 
advocates  a  plan  for  the  cooperation  of  bankers'  asso- 
ciations to  extend  aid  on  a  wide  scale. 

5.  Mutual  aid  in  time  of  trial  and  trouble  with  union- 
ism; taking  orders  of  a  struck  shop  and  returning  profit; 
furnishing  men  from  shops  of  other  members  and  of 


192  TRADE  UNIONISM 

outsiders;  paying  members  out  of  the  reserve  fund  for 
holding  out  against  unions — a  kind  of  strike  benefit ;  and 
endeavoring  to  secure  special  patronage  for  employers 
in  trouble  from  members  and  outsiders. 

6.  Refusal  of  aid  to  any  enterprise  operating  under 
the  closed  shop. 

7.  Advertisements  in  some  nev^^spapers  and  the  v^^ith- 
drawal  of  advertisements  from  others  friendly  to  un- 
ionism. 

8.  Detachment  of  union  leaders  by  promotion  or  brib- 
ery, honorary  positions  and  social  advancement,  thus 
constantly  depriving  unions  of  the  directive  force  of 
their  strongest  men. 

9.  Discrediting  union  leaders  and  unions  by  exploit- 
ing their  mistakes  in  strikes,  or  mismanagement  of 
funds ;  appealing  to  the  public  by  the  prosecution  of  lead- 
ers; exposing  records  of  fearful  examples  as  types,  e.g., 
Parks,  O'Shea,  and  Madden,  and  by  inciting  to  violence. 

10.  Weeding  out  agitators  and  plain  union  men  by 
blacklists,  card  catalogs,  lists  of  employees,  and  by  iden- 
tification systems,  for  example,  the  Metal  Trades'  card 
catalog,  and  the  Seaman's  employment  book.  Employ- 
ment agencies  for  employers'  associations  require  lists 
of  all  former  employees,  examine  their  records  and  re- 
quire certificates  of  membership. 

11.  Detaching  workers  from  the  union  and  the  un- 
ion's control  by  requiring  an  individual  contract  with 
penalties,  i.e.,  the  loss  of  unsettled  wages  called  deposit 
in  case  of  strike;  by  welfare  plans,  insurance  and  pen- 
sions to  the  workers  which  depend  upon  long,  continu- 
ous service  and  are  forfeited  in  case  of  strike;  selling 
stock  cheap,  giving  the  feeling  to  the  workers  that  they 
have  a  stake  in  the  game,  and  also  by  bonus  and  pre- 


EMPLOYERS'  ASSOCIATIONS  193 

mium  systems ;  and  by  "going  the  unions  one  better,"  i.e., 
paying  above  the  union  scale,  giving  special  advantage  to 
superior  workers,  requiring  good  working  conditions  by 
the  members  of  the  association,  establishing  accident 
prevention  bureaus,  safety  inspection,  and  giving  care 
to  the  housing  of  employees. 

12.  Conducting  trade  schools  and  agitating  for  con- 
tinuation schools  and  vocational  training;  conducting 
trade  schools  themselves  or  helping  to  support  them; 
having  cities  conduct  continuation  schools  as  in  Cincin- 
nati and  Hartford.  The  National  Metal  Trades'  Asso- 
ciation cooperates  with  the  University  of  Cincinnati  in 
engineering  courses  there;  providing  "instructors"  to 
teach  the  unskilled  as  does  the  National  Founders'  Asso- 
ciation; advocating  trade  schools  supported  at  public  ex- 
pense generally,  and  separate  vocational  schools ;  attack- 
ing the  present  system  of  academic  education ;  donating 
sums  to  certain  societies  for  promoting  industrial  educa- 
tion, e.g.,  the  National  Metal  Trades  Association  has 
donated  money  to  the  National  Association  for  the  Pro- 
motion of  Industrial  Education. 

13.  Securing  foreknowledge  of  union  plans  by  the 
spy  system,  use  of  detective  agencies,  spies  in  the  union, 
the  shadowing  of  leaders,  gaining  their  confidence  or 
using  the  dictagraph. 

14.  Systematic  organization  and  use  of  strike  break- 
ers and  counter-sluggers.  ■ 

15.  Organization    of   counter-unions. 

16.  Use  of  the  police  and  militia.  The  unions,  not 
having  been  able  to  enact  the  rules  of  the  game  into 
law,  cannot  gain  their  ends  by  the  assertion  of  their 
rights.  With  the  law  on  the  side  of  property,  indorsing 
individual  liberty,  to  gain  their  ends  they  resort  to  force. 


194  TRADE  UNIONISM 

17.  Systematic  appeal  to  the  courts,  the  use  of  the  in- 
junction, systematic  prosecution  for  violence,  the  em- 
ployment of  a  large  corps  of  legal  talent,  the  bringing 
into  play  of  law  and  order  leagues,  suits  for  damages 
in  case  of  strikes,  and  systematic  attacks  on  the  consti- 
tutionality of  labor  laws. 

18.  Opposition  to  labor  legislation  by  organizing  lob- 
bies to  appear  before  both  state  and  national  bodies; 
by  a  system  of  calling  upon  members  of  the  association 
to  send  in  letters  and  telegrams  in  great  numbers;  by 
having  employers  who  will  be  most  affected  but  who 
have  good  labor  conditions  appear  before  legislative  com- 
mittees  to  oppose  labor  legislation ;  and  by  having  ad- 
vertisements in  many  newspapers  denouncing  labor  bills 
and  calling  upon  citizens  to  write  to  legislators  not  to 
support  them. 

19.  Political  agitation  and  action  such  as  urging  em- 
ployers to  neglect  party  lines  and  to  vote  for  safe  and 
sane  men  only;  supporting  antilabor  statesmen  and  op- 
posing labor  politicians  and  demagogues,  by  sending 
funds,  men,  and  literature  into  the  districts  of  candi- 
dates ;  exposing  the  weaknesses  of  the  labor  vote  and  the 
failure  of  labor  to  defeat  men  the  association  supports ; 
preventing  the  adoption  of  anti-injunction  planks  or 
other  class  legislation,  or  allowing  only  meaningless  ones 
in  party  platforms;  denouncing  the  initiative,  referen- 
dum, and  recall,  especially  the  recall  of  judges  and  ju- 
dicial decisions;  and  defending  the  courts  and  the  con- 
stitution. 

20.  Appealing  to  the  public  by  the  use  of  the  press, 
publishing  bulletins,  and  condemning  papers  which  are 
unfriendly;  systematically  attacking  unions  and  exploit- 
ing their  violence;  preventing  the  publication  of  seditious 


EMPLOYERS'  ASSOCIATIONS  195 

articles  like  those  in  the  Los  Angeles  papers;  giving 
statements  to  the  press  during  strikes,  pointing  out  that 
the  strike  is  for  recognition  and  for  the  closed  shop  and 
not  for  better  wages  and  conditions ;  pointing  out,  in  case 
the  strike  is  merely  a  matter  of  wages,  that  the  trade 
can  stand  no  more  but  is  now  paying  higher  than  else- 
where, also  that  should  wages  be  advanced  prices  would 
be  higher,  and  the  consumer  would  have  to  pay  more  in 
the  face  of  the  increased  cost  of  living,  and  exploiting 
the  losses  of  the  workers  in  strikes,  thus  showing  the 
folly  of  strikes;  sending  out  circulars  to  educators  and 
clergy;  sending  publications  to  the  workers;  for  example, 
the  National  Founders'  Association  and  the  National 
Metal  Trades'  Association  send  their  review  to  molders 
and  machinists  free;  attacking  Socialism  and  socialists 
and  lauding  ministers,  educators,  judges,  and  economists 
who  show  the  fallacies  of  unionism  and  set  forth  the 
eternal  verities. 

The  underlying  assumptions,  theories,  and  attitudes  of 
employers'  associations,  more  particularly  those  of  the 
militant  type,  are :  that  a  natural  harmony  of  interests 
prevails  in  society  and  therefore  the  unions  are  to  be 
restrained  when  they  use  coercive  methods ;  that  the  em- 
ployers' interests  are  always  identical  with  the  interests 
of  society  and  therefore  unionism  is  to  be  condemned 
whenever  it  interferes  with  their  interests ;  that  the  in- 
terests of  the  worker  and  employer  are  harmonious,  and 
therefore  when  the  unions  oppose  the  employer  they  are 
misled  by  unscrupulous  leaders  and  are  to  be  condemned ; 
that  the  employer  gives  work  to  the  laborers  and  there- 
fore they  are  ungrateful  and  immoral  and  to  be  con- 
demned when  they  combine  to  oppose  him ;  that  the  em- 
ployer has  an  absolute  right  to  manage  his  own  business 


•196  TRADE  UNIONISM 

to  suit  himself  as  against  his  workers,  and  therefore  the 
unions  are  to  be  condemned  when  they  interfere  in  any 
way  with  that  right ;  that  the  business  is  his,  an  absolute 
property  right,  and  to  compel  him  to  bargain  with  the 
men  collectively,  instead  of  as  individuals,  is  to  compel 
him  to  deal  with  men  not  in  his  employ,  Math  an  irre- 
sponsible committee,  and  to  assert  a  voice  in  the  matters 
of  hiring  and  discharge,  the  conditions  of  employment, 
and  a  right  to  the  job  and  the  trade;  that  the  employer 
has  an  absolute  right  to  manage  his  own  business  as 
against  workers  not  in  his  employ  and  therefore  outside 
workers  are  to  be  condemned  when  the}'  act  in  sympa- 
thy with  his  workers ;  that  every  worker  has  an  absolute 
right  to  work  when,  where,  and  for  whom  he  pleases  and 
therefore  the  unions  are  to  be  condemned  when  they 
restrict  this  right  and  freedom;  that  free  competition 
of  the  workers  is  always  in  the  interest  of  society  and 
therefore  that  any  interference  by  the  unions  in  this  is 
to  be  condemned ;  that  the  greatest  possible  production 
is  always  in  the  interest  of  society  and  therefore  the 
union  is  to  be  condemned  whenever  it  interferes  with 
this;  that  the  law,  the  courts,  and  the  police  represent 
absolute  and  impartial  rights  and  justice,  and  therefore 
the  unions  are  to  be  condemned  whenever  they  violate 
the  law  or  oppose  the  police. 

The  fundamental  questions  of  the  source  of  social 
rights  and  the  meaning  of  social  welfare  lie  at  the  core 
of  a  critical  consideration  of  the  employers'  associations, 
their  theories  and  viewpoint.  What  is  going  to  be  done 
with  this  social  philosophy  of  God-given,  inalienable  and 
absolute  rights?  If  this  be  rejected,  what  is  to  be  sub- 
stituted? Shall  we  say,  general  social  welfare?  What 
is  that?    Take  the  case  of  the  introduction  of  machinery. 


EMPLOYERS*  ASSOCIATIONS  197 

Is  it  right  and  just  to  make  the  workers  pay  for  social 
progress?  Shall  we  say,  the  upholding  of  established 
rights — of  whatever  is  law  ?  Where  did  these  rights  and 
laws  come  from  ?  Or  shall  we  say,  substitute  that  which 
is  natural?  But  what  is  natural?  Is  competition  nat- 
ural? Consider  the  historical  effects  of  free  competi- 
tion.   Then  what  shall  be  the  basis? 

Is  there  any  more  basis  for  the  employers'  claim  of 
rights  and  condemnation  of  attacks  of  unions  upon  them, 
than  for  the  counterclaims  of  the  unions?  Is  it  true  that 
employers  give  work  to  laborers  any  more  than  that 
laborers  give  profits  to  employers?  That  the  employer 
has  a  right  to  compel  men  to  bargain  individually  any 
more  than  laborers  have  a  right  to  compel  employers  to 
bargain  with  men  collectively  ?  Is  it  true  that  employers 
or  workingmen  have  nothing  to  arbitrate?  Is  the  em- 
ployer any  more  justified  in  refusing  to  deal  with  men 
not  in  his  employ  than  a  group  of  workmen  would  be 
when  in  conflict  with  their  employer  in  opposing  the 
assistance  of  outside  employers?  Has  every  man  a 
right  to  work  where  and  when  and  for  whom  he  pleases, 
regardless  of  the  effects  on  his  fellow  workers?  Is 
he  not  interfering  widi  their  business? 

If  it  is  wrong  for  the  workers  who  have  no  grievances 
against  their  particular  employer  to  help  other  workers 
who  have,  then  why  is  it  not  wrong  for  employers  who 
have  no  grievances  against  their  particular  workmen  to 
help  other  employers  who  have?  If  the  workers  injure 
an  innocent  employer,  employers  injure  innocent  work- 
ers. If  workers  mix  in  the  business  of  other  employers, 
the  employers  mix  in  the  business  of  other  workers. 
The  only  difference  is  in  method.  Each  side  uses  the 
best  ones  at  hand  for  its  purposes.    If  we  feel  that  there 


198  TRADE  UNIONISM 

is  a  difference,  that  it  is  somehow  morally  worse  for  the 
workers  to  strike  in  aid  of  those  with  whom  their  em- 
ployer has  no  concern,  than  for  employers  to  aid  other 
employers  with  whom  they  have  no  concern,  it  means 
that  we  have  been  consciously  or  unconsciously  holding 
to  assumptions  underlying  the  militant  employers'  inter- 
pretation of  unionism :  which  is  to  say  that  there  is  no 
natural  or  normal  cooperative  relationship  between  work- 
ers as  such;  harmony  of  interests  is  between  employers 
and  workers,  and  the  normal  relationship  between  work- 
ers is  competitive;  therefore  the  supreme  duty  of  the 
workers  is  to  their  own  employer;  that  every  employer 
has  a  right  to  manage  his  own  affairs,  especially  as  to 
his  relationships  with  his  workers,  without  any  outside 
interference. 

But  why  should  we  not  assume  a  harmony  of  inter- 
ests between  workers,  that  they  owe  a  supreme  duty  to 
one  another?  Why  is  this  not  the  normal?  We  admit 
it  readily  enough  for  the  employer.  We  do  not  feel 
shocked  when  the  association  comes  to  the  relief  of  a 
struck  employer.  Is  there  any  more  reason  for  assuming 
harmony  of  interest  between  individual  employer  and  his 
worker  plus  harmony  between  employer  and  employer, 
than  for  assuming  disharmony  of  interest  between  indi- 
vidual employer  and  workers  plus  harmony  of  interests 
between  workers?  And  if  every  employer  has  a  nat- 
ural right  to  manage  his  own  business,  free  from  inter- 
ference from  outside  workers,  why  has  not  every  group 
of  workers  of  an  individual  business  the  right  to  man- 
age its  own  affairs  without  interference  from  outside 
employers? 

If  we  cannot  feel  this,  it  is  because  we  have  been 
corrupted  by  assumptions  of  normal  and  natural  rights. 


EMPLOYERS'  ASSOCIATIONS  199 

We  have  come  to  assume  with  employers  that  whatever 
has  been  is  normal  and  right,  while  whatever  is  becom- 
ing is  abnormal  and  wrong:  that  is,  because  employers 
have  been  able  to  act  so  and  so,  therefore,  it  is  natural, 
God-given,  normal,  right,  but  because  workers  are  only 
just  beginning  to  be  able  or  are  striving  to  be  able  to 
act  so  and  so,  therefore,  it  is  unnatural,  abnormal  and 
v^rong.  This  is  at  bottom  the  old  error  of  the  absolute. 
It  means  that  evolution  is  a  form  of  words,  not  a  reality. 

The  absurdity  becomes  apparent  the  moment  we  real- 
ize the  notion  of  evolution  and  examine  the  nature  and 
source  of  social  right.  Social  rights  exist  only  as  con- 
firmed by  society.  Their  historical  basis  is  in  the  power 
of  the  individual  or  the  class.  On  this  basis  unions  have 
the  right  to  interfere  with  the  employers'  business  when 
they  can.  If  we  seek  a  rational  basis  it  lies  in  ex- 
pediency. Society  can  curtail  it  whenever  it  sees  fit,  and 
in  allowing  workers  to  do  so  and  so,  it  gives  a  right. 
The  employers'  plea  is  therefore  false  and  its  high  moral 
basis  is  gone. 

The  militant  employers'  point  of  view  finds  no  sanc- 
tion in  modern  social  scientific  thought  or  in  the  spirit 
of  the  age.  It  Is  a  relic  of  the  preevolutionary  age,  of 
dead  and  gone  absolutistic  philosophy,  government,  and 
economics.  The  only  basis  of  social  rights  acceptable  to 
modern  thinking  is  social  welfare  and  social  will.  The 
employers'  claim  of  rights  finds  no  practical  sanction  in 
social  welfare  because  it  is  usually  impossible  to  deter- 
mine what  is  social  welfare.  For  society  is  so  consti- 
tuted that  what  is  good  for  one  group  or  class  may  be 
bad  for  another,  and  there  is  no  standard  for  determin- 
ing the  relative  social  importance  of  different  classes. 
But  we  do  not  know  enough  about  the  nature  of  so- 


200  TRADE  UNIONISM 

ciety  and  the  laws  of  developmental  ends  to  determine 
what  is  ultimately  for  the  best.  We  are  thrown  back, 
therefore,  for  the  sources  and  sanction  of  rights  to  the 
social  will.  Society  alone  can  give  social  rights;  society 
alone  can  take  them  away.  What  society  allows  are 
rights.  Practically,  social  rights  are  the  rules  of  the 
game  of  the  dominant  class,  but  social  rights  thus  granted 
have  no  necessary  moral  sanction.  Every  group  or  class 
can  have  its  rights  in  proportion  to  the  power  to  enforce 
its  claim.  Hence,  this  insistence  upon  "rights"  by  em- 
ployers and  unionists  is  pretty  much  in  the  air ;  it  means 
practically  an  attempt  to  "bluff"  society  into  helping 
each  group  to  uphold  what  it  wants  for  its  own  good. 
The  most  we  can  say  of  the  employers'  claim  of  rights 
is  that,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  there  is  no  more  basis  in 
morals  or  social  welfare  for  it,  than  for  the  unionists' 
counterclaim,  but  that  many  of  these  rights  are  based 
on  outworn  philosophy  and  false  assumption  of  fact. 

In  conclusion:  (a)  The  only  rational  basis  of  rights 
is  social  will,  (b)  Actual  rights  are  pragmatic  in  the 
sense  that  they  are  historical  products  which  have 
"worked"  to  the  benefit  of  somebody,  (c)  But  many  of 
these  rights  are  group  or  class  standards  masquerading 
as  social  standards.  They  have  been  foisted  upon  so- 
ciety by  a  group  or  class  falsely  identifying  itself  with 
society,  (d)  And  there  is  a  law  of  retardation  here  in 
that  standards  and  rights  are  maintained  by  supersti- 
tion, faith,  custom,  law,  and  force  long  after  they  have 
ceased  to  give  useful  social  service,  (e)  "Established 
rights,"  therefore,  do  not  represent  anything  sacred  or 
necessarily  right  or  good,  (f)  In  matters  where  group 
environments  are  sharply  opposed,  it  is  Impossible  to  get 
a  consensus  of  opinion  and  to  set  up,  therefore,  real 


EMPLOYERS*  ASSOCIATIONS  201 

social  rights,  (g)  Where  group  interests  are  opposed  it 
is  not  possible  to  determine  positively  what  is  for  the 
social  good,  and,  therefore,  to  set  up  social  standards  of 
judgment,  (h)  In  practice  every  man  must  decide  for 
himself  what  seems  to  him  conducive  to  social  welfare 
and,  therefore,  good  and  right,  and  the  best  each  can 
do  is  to  act  strongly  in  cooperation  with  those  who  see 
things  as  he  docs,  (i)  However,  each  must  realize  that 
his  decision  is  the  outcome  of  inherited  tendencies,  teach- 
ing and  environment,  a  matter  of  feeling  more  than  of 
sound  judgment,  and  that,  therefore,  he  has  no  right  to 
be  dogmatic,  (j)  But  it  will  be  generally  true  to  say 
that  things  are  not  necessarily  right  because  they  are 
established  in  law  or  custom,  since  in  the  last  analysis 
"rights"  generally  represent — at  least  in  this  field — 
group  power. 

The  employers'  association  movement  was  in  the  be- 
ginning primarily  defensive.  Just  as  the  unions  arose 
earlier  in  defense  of  the  economic  status  and  the  as- 
sumed rights  of  craftsmen  when  in  the  development  of 
modern  industry  the  individual  employer  became  too 
strong  for  the  individual  worker,  so  the  employers'  asso- 
ciations arose  later  in  defense  of  the  economic  status 
and  assumed  rights  of  the  employer  of  labor  when  un- 
ionism had  so  developed  that  it  was  stronger  than  the 
individual  employer.  This  occurred  roughly  between 
the  time  of  the  formation  of  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor  and  the  demonstration  of  its  great  strength 
about  1902. 

The  problem  of  the  employers'  association  was,  they 
supposed,  a  comparatively  easy  one.  They  need  simply 
refuse  to  countenance  or  deal  with  trade  union  organiza- 
tions.    They  soon  found,  however,  that  they  had  made 


204  TRADE  UNIONISM 

a  big  mistake.  Unionism  would  not  down,  it  evidently 
had  roots  in  the  soil  of  reality  and  its  overthrow  was 
going  to  be  costly.  As  a  result,  employers  divided  into 
two  groups  of  associations,  those  who  took  the  narrow, 
selfish,  immediate  economic  point  of  view,  and  were 
willing  to  purchase  peace  and  prosperity  by  a  compro- 
mise with  unionism,  and  taking  it  out  of  the  consumers, 
that  is,  mediatory  or  conciliatory  associations,  and  those 
who  retained  the  original  purpose,  but  saw  that  the  fight 
must  be  long,  intense,  and  broadly  educational.  They 
were  the  militant  associations. 

Most  of  the  mediatory  or  conciliatory  associations  de- 
veloped along  narrow,  economic  lines  mainly.  They  at- 
tempted to  strengthen  themselves  defensively  against  the 
particular  unions  with  which  they  had  to  deal,  and  to 
develop  with  the  unions  a  strong  position  as  against 
society — a  double-sided  monopoly.  The  militant  asso- 
ciations buckled  down  to  their  task  of  weakening  or 
eliminating  the  tmion  organizations.  But  in  the  course 
of  this  they  encountered  influences  which  greatly  modi- 
fied their  character  and  viewpoint.  They  found  that  if 
they  were  to  combat  the  unions  successfully  their  own 
members  had  to  submit  to  control.  Thus,  although  they 
were  seeking  individualistic  ends,  they  had  to  curtail  the 
liberty  of  their  individual  members,  just  as  the  individ- 
ual worker,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Frey,  editor  of  the 
Molder's  Journal,  "to  gain  and  maintain  his  freedom 
has  to  submit  to  group  control — to  develop  the  spirit  of 
cooperation  within  the  group."  This  was  a  tremendous 
blow  at  the  old  laissez  faire,  individualistic  ideal  which 
they  were  seeking  to  defend.  A  strong,  centralized  au- 
thority had  to  be  set  up  over  the  individual.  The  em- 
ployers had  to  be  made  one  as  the  unions  had  made  the 


:eMPLOYERS^  ASSOCIATIONS  20^ 

workers  one.  They  found  also  that  if  they  were  to  com- 
bat the  unions  successfully,  they  had  to  meet  the  unions 
on  every  field,  not  alone  on  the  economic.  This  forced 
them  to  enter  politics  and  to  study  every  phase  of  eco- 
nomic and  social  welfare;  to  consider  the  evil  effects  of 
existing  conditions  inside  and  outside  the  shop  that  de- 
veloped unions  and  contributed  to  union  strength,  and 
to  devise  remedies.  This  drove  them  into  welfare  work 
of  all  sorts,  the  study  of  safety  and  sanitation,  work- 
men's compensation,  the  unemployment  problem,  and 
industrial  education.  The  result  was  a  strong  tendency 
to  educate  and  socialize  these  individualists,  to  force  them 
to  consider  constructive  measures,  to  broaden  their  so- 
cial outlook,  to  modify  their  militancy.  They  began  to 
see  that  if  they  were  to  eliminate  or  weaken  unionism 
they  must  give  the  workers  what  the  unions  sought  to 
give  them.  They  found,  finally,  that  if  they  were  to  suc- 
ceed they  must  develop  all  sorts  of  spiritual  and  federa- 
tive relationships  to  offset  the  union  form  and  strength. 
Out  of  this  has  seemed  to  be  growing  a  class  conscious- 
ness. 

The  survey  of  the  militant  associations,  then,  seems 
to  indicate  that  the  employers  as  a  class  must  organize 
society  and  ameliorate  social  conditions.  Unions  had  a 
reason  for  existence  because  of  the  employers'  failure  to 
meet  the  needs  of  the  situation.  The  negative  appeal  to 
individualism,  natural  order,  and  natural  rights,  the  wild 
denunciation  of  the  unions  as  unnatural  and  corrupt  or- 
ganizations, is  giving  place  to  talk  of  fair  conditions, 
education  of  both  employers  and  workers,  and  construc- 
tive measures  as  the  way  out.  Thus  the  militant  asso- 
ciations tend  to  turn  uplift.  And  with  the  development 
of  this  spirit  has  come  a  new  form  of  organization  typi- 


204  TRADE  UNIONISM 

fied  by  the  National  Civic  Federation  to  include  employ- 
ers, workers  and  the  public  with  the  purposes  of  investi- 
gation, the  consideration  and  trial  of  cooperation,  profit- 
sharing,  and  general  betterment  schemes. 

The  methods  by  which  the  employers'  associations  and 
trusts  have  beaten  down  the  union  strength  are  indica- 
tive not  only  of  the  character  and  possible  outcome  of 
the  struggle,  but  also  throw  light  on  the  employers'  atti- 
tude and  have  caused  and  perhaps  justified  many  union 
points  of  view  and  methods.  It  almost  seems  that  the 
employers'  association  is  stronger  potentially  than  any 
union  movement  can  be,  that  the  unions,  having  organ- 
ized the  individual  workers  of  the  group  against  the  indi- 
vidual employer,  have  done  their  utmost,  so  long  as  tliey 
lack  the  solidarity  for  a  class  movement;  and  that  they 
can  at  present  find  no  offset  for  the  strength  of  the 
employers'  association  movement.  On  the  other  hand 
the  employers'  association  movement  in  its  fight  on  un- 
ionism is  becoming  modified  so  that  it  is  not  likely  to 
push  its  advantage  to  the  utmost.  It  holds  out  promise 
of  a  social  betterment  movement  far  removed  from  the 
old  classical,  individualistic,  laissca  faire  position. 

We  have  found  unionism  invading  the  consciousness 
of  the  individual.  So  far  so  good.  But  does  it  tend  to 
develop  social  consciousness  and  valid  social  standards? 
One  of  the  hopeful  things  about  employers'  associations 
seems  to  be  that  they  are  doing  this.  The  great  need  of 
the  present  time  is  to  develop  social  consciousness  and 
to  discover  social  standards.  It  seems  as  if  the  history 
of  modern  industrial  society  shows  us  a  succession  of 
swings  through  what  might  be  called  a  typical  cycle  of 
development.  These  cycles  are  marked  by  three  stages : 
the    individual    consciousness    of    the    seventeenth    and 


EMPLOYERS'  ASSOCIATIONS  205 

eighteenth  centuries;  the  group  consciousness  of  the  nine- 
teenth; and  the  social  consciousness  of  the  twentieth.  In 
the  first  stage,  individuahsm  is  rampant.  The  indi- 
vidual seeks  only  or  mainly  his  own  well-being,  uncon- 
scious of  a  larger  whole.  The  contest  is  between  indi- 
vidual and  individual.  Then,  gradually,  groups  with 
common  interests  develop.  The  consciousness  of  the 
individual  is  enlarged.  He  sees  his  interests  in  the 
interests  of  the  group.  Group  standards  arise.  The  in- 
dividual is  subjected  to  them.  Then  comes  contest  be- 
tween groups.  Finally  social  consciousness  emerges. 
The  individual  identifies  his  good  with  the  good  of  the 
whole;  social  standards  and  social  control  arise.  Social 
well-being  is  consciously  sought  and  to  an  extent  at- 
tained. But  all  the  while,  conditions,  needs,  relation- 
ships, problems,  terms  of  welfare,  are  changing.  The 
standards  of  social  welfare  set  up  gradually  cease  to  fit 
needs;  the  system  of  social  control,  becoming  invalid, 
hampers  progress.  There  is  a  revolt.  Old  standards 
and  systems  of  control  are  broken  down.  Individualism 
is  again  idealized  and  becomes  rampant.  Then  the  proc- 
ess of  socialization  begins  again. 

A  period  of  individualistic  revolt  took  place  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  and  swept  aside  all 
social  control.  There  developed  a  philosophy  of  natural 
order,  natural  law  and  laisscs  faire.  Social  welfare,  it 
was  declared,  came  through  industrial  competition.  We 
are  now  in  the  second  stage,  group  consciousness,  group 
standards  and  group  fighting.  We  are  struggling  to- 
ward a  third  stage,  the  development  of  social  conscious- 
ness and  soci-al  standards.  From  individual  conscious- 
ness and  interest  we  progress  through  group  conscious- 
ness and  interest  to  social  consciousness  and  interest. 


'2o6  TRADE  UNIONISM 

We  are  studying  groups  to  try  to  understand  the  forces 
with  which  we  have  to  deal  in  this  struggle  forward,  to 
see  if  we  can  find  clues  to  social  standards  valid  for  our 
developing  situation  and  a  basis  for  social  control. 
Standards  have  broken  down  in  the  past  because  they 
were  absolute.  Our  great  task  now  is  to  try,  this  time, 
to  get  standards  that  may  be  elastic  and  develop  with 
developing  situations  and  needs.  We  must  take  into 
consideration  evolution.  This  means  not  only  a  study 
of  present  conditions  and  social  expectation,  but  a  study 
of  the  genesis  and  process  of  social  development,  a  view 
not  only  of  the  factors  of  the  present  but  of  the  whole 
developing  process. 

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Class  (1901). 

.    Sundry  Papers  and  Addresses  on  Labor  Problems 

(1906). 

Marcosson,  I.  F.  "Labor  Met  By  Its  Own  Methods," 
World's  Work,  7:4309  (1904). 

Mitchell.  Organized  Labor,  chap.  XXII,  "Organized 
Labor  and  Organized  Capital." 

Stecker,  Margaret.  "The  National  Founders'  Associa- 
tion."    Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  2^  •.^^2  (1916). 

Van  Cleave,  J.  W.  "The  Work  of  Employers'  Associa- 
tions in  the  Settlement  of  Labor  Disputes,"  Annals  of 
the  American  Academy,  36:373-80  (1910). 

WiLLouGHBY,  W.  F.  Employers'  Associations,  Quar- 
terly Journal  of  Economics,  20:110-50  (1905). 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR 

The  specific  dangers  which  we  encounter  in  taking  up 
a  study  of  the  legal  aspects  of  labor  are  clear.  We  may 
lose  our  way  in  the  esoteric  technicalities  of  the  law  and 
go  wrong  in  the  facts;  we  may  go  much  more  deeply  or 
much  less  deeply  into  the  subject  than  is  warranted  by 
our  purpose,  needs  and  circumstances;  and  we  i^iay  be 
led  into  discussions  off  the  main  track  and  of  no  par- 
ticular value  to  us  here.  Therefore,  there  is  a  special 
need  to  begin  with  a  clear-headed  attempt  to  determine 
just  what  is  the  purpose  in  the  study  and  what  ought  to 
be  the  method.  What  is  the  special  significance  of  the 
iegal  status  of  labor  and  the  employers  in  this  connec- 
tion; what  is  its  special  bearing  on  our  problem? 

Among  the  main  fundamental  forces  and  conditions 
that  determine  what  ought  to  and  can  be  done  in  the 
solution  of  labor  problems,  we  find  that  the  present  legal 
status  determines  most  largely  the  actual  conditions  and 
problems  of  labor,  and  that  most  labor  problems  must 
be  solved  in  terms  of  rights  and  law  by  invoking  present 
and  changing  rights  and  law.  What  should  be  the  pur- 
pose then  in  studying  the  rights  and  legal  status  of  labor 
and  the  employers?  It  should  be  to  find  out  what  are  in 
essentials  the  law's  chief  characteristics;  whether  as  it 
stands  it  puts  the  employer  and  the  workers  on  an  equal 
footing,  and  gives  equal  opportunity  to  them  in  working 

2U 


212  TRADE  UNIONISM 

out  their  problems  for  themselves;  whether  as  it  stands 
it  gives  opportunity  for  constructive  social  effort  in  this 
connection,  and  whether  it  furnishes  a  sufficient  basis 
for  a  constructive  social  program  for  betterment.  If 
not,  what  ought  to  be  done  about  it?  How  ought  it  to 
be  changed  in  its  general  fundamental  characteristics  and 
in  its  general  character?  Can  such  changes  be  made, 
and  if  so,  how? 

The  law  rests  on  two  fundamental  and  contradictory 
concepts  of  society,  of  social  relationships  and  social 
rights,  of  justice,  welfare  and  control,  the  absolutistic 
and  the  evolutionary  concepts.  The  absolutistic  concept 
assumes  a  fixed  social  constitution,  fixed  social  relation- 
ships and  positive  standards  of  right  and  justice,  resting 
upon  a  natural  order  in  which  exist  the  natural  and  in- 
alienable rights  of  private  property,  individual  liberty, 
free  contract  and  free  competition.  It  assumes  that  so- 
cial right,  justice  and  welfare  consist  in  preserving  these 
natural  rights,  since,  when  they  are  preserved,  equality 
of  opportunity  is  secured  for  all  individuals  and  social 
harmony  prevails;  that,  therefore,  the  law  should  aim 
solely  to  secure  and  preserve  these  rights;  and  that  this 
is  best  done  by  giving  power  to  the  courts  to  test  all 
legislation  on  the  basis  of  those  fixed  and  fundamental 
principles  of  natural  right  and  to  declare  unconstitutional 
and  void  any  laws  which  appear  to  violate  them.  The 
evolutionary  concept  assumes  a  developing  social  con- 
stitution and  changing  social  relations  and  relative  stand- 
ards of  right  and  justice,  resting  on  a  denial  of  any  fixed 
natural  order  or  natural  and  inalienable  rights  in  regard 
to  private  property,  liberty  of  the  individual,  freedom 
of  contract,  and  free  competition.  It,  therefore,  assumes 
that  social  right,  justice  and  welfare  consist  in  changing 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    213 

or  adapting  rights  and  law  to  meet  the  particular  needs 
and  circumstances  of  developing  social  conditions  and 
relationships,  and  that  this  is  best  secured  when  the  peo- 
ple are  allowed  through  their  legislators  to  make  the 
laws  with  regard  to  present  and  developing  needs,  re- 
lationships and  standards. 

As  yet  the  law  as  it  stands,  in  its  fundamental  as- 
sumptions, in  its  method  and  in  its  specific  character, 
especially  as  it  concerns  the  relations  between  employ- 
ers and  workers,  is  predominantly  representative  of  the 
first  of  these  conflicting  concepts.  The  second  shows  its 
influence  mainly  in  laws  where  it  can  be  made  to  appear 
that  the  persons  primarily  affected  are  not  complete  in- 
dividuals, e.g.,  women,  minors,  children,  dependents,  de- 
fectives and  delinquents ;  or  where  it  can  be  made  to  ap- 
pear that  the  public  is  more  concerned  than  the  employers 
and  workers,  e.g.,  in  cases  relating  to  public  health  and 
safety,  sanitation,  nuisances,  housing,  accident  and  death, 
industrial  disease,  and  compensation  for  these  things. 
So  far,  then,  as  the  labor  field  is  concerned,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  laws  relating  to  women's  work,  child  labor, 
charities  and  corrections,  sanitation  and  safety,  working- 
men's  insurance,  etc.,  where  there  is  a  struggle  on  be- 
tween the  two  principles,  with  the  latter  rapidly  gaining, 
the  law  in  principle,  method  and  specific  character  still 
reflects  the  absolutistic  principle.^ 

^  Lest  some  assume  that  I  am  dogmatic  and  partisan  in 
this  treatment,  a  word  may  be  necessary.  What  are  we 
studying  this  for?  Mainly,  because  the  law  is  the  chief  tool 
that  we  have  to  use  in  solving  our  labor  problems.  There- 
fore, if  it  is  unfitted  for  this  in  spirit,  character  and  method 
of  procedure,  then  the  big  labor  problem  is  how  to  change  it. 
We  must  know  what  it  is  in  these  respects  and  zvhy  it  is  what 
it  is.     Why  do  I  state  its  spirit,  character  and  method  of  pro- 


214  TRADE  UNIONISM 

The  characteristics  of  the  law  may  be  summarized  as 
follows : 

cedure  in  terms  of  the  absolutistic  concept  which  underlies 
it?  Because  that  concept  still  dominates  the  spirit,  character 
and  method  of  procedure  of  the  law,  especially  with  regard 
to  labor  matters.  Am  I  trying  in  this  way  to  make  capital  for 
the  evolutionary  concept  which  is  just  beginning  to  affect  the 
law?  No.  I  don't  know  what  the  character  and  method  of  the 
law  would  be  under  the  influence  of  this  concept.  I  have  not 
had  a  chance  to  see.  It  might  conceivably  be  worse.  I  simply 
know  that  the  law  as  it  is  is  not  in  harmony  with  the  spirit 
of  the  age.  Am  I  partisan  then  in  my  analysis?  No.  I  am 
simply  stating  the  facts  and  trying  to  find  out  why  they  exist. 
Am  I  dogmatic  about  it?  No,  because  as  far  as  possible, 
as  far  as  the  facts  exist,  I  am  trying  to  set  forth  all  view- 
points and  all  sides.  If  anyone  concludes  from  this  that  one 
side  or  the  other  is  right  or  wrong,  that  is  his  affair.  The 
dogmatic  man  is  one  who  presents  one  viewpoint  only,  and 
keeps  hammering  away  on  that,  but  does  not  present  it  as 
a  viewpoint,  because  he  never  clearly  formulates  it  and  never 
intimates  that  there  is  any  other.  Lawyers  and  judges  do  not 
claim  that  the  law  assumes  to  represent  absolute  justice,  but 
only  that  they  are  approaching  or  approximating  justice,  and 
hence  the  law  is  not  based  on  the  absolutistic  theory.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  based  on  the  evolutionary  theory  evolving 
toward  justice.  In  a  certain  sense,  it  may  be  said  that  the 
lawyers  and  judges  are  evolutionary,  but  the  legal  attitude 
comes  to  an  absolutistic  position  in  the  end.  To  make  this 
clear,  we  have  to  distinguish  between  two  kinds  of  evolution, 
modern  scientific  evolution,  which  is  relativistic,  and  teleological 
evolution,  which  is  as  old  as  history  and  is  but  one  variation 
of  the  eighteenth  century  idea,  and  at  bottom  thoroughly  ab- 
solutistic. Modern,  scientific  evolution  knows  no  beginning  and 
no  end;  it  postulates  simply  change.  It  knows  no  absolute  or 
final  right  or  justice,  but  only  right  and  justice  relative  to 
particular  conditions,  circumstances  and  ends.  What  was 
right  a  hundred  years  ago  may  be  wrong  now  and  vice  versa. 
And  this  always  has  been  and  always  will  be  so.    Everything 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    215 

I.  As  such,  the  law  is  archaic  and  antiquated  in  view- 
point and  method.     It  accepts  a  social  theory  conceived 

always  has  been,  is,  and  always  will  be  in  flux.  There  is 
no  assignable  beginning  and  no  assignable  end  to  the  process 
in  which  a  fixed  constitution  of  things  will  exist,  and  there- 
fore, fixed  standards  of  right  and  justice.  Teleological  evolu- 
tion, on  the  other  hand,  assumes  a  fixed,  ideal  constitution  of 
things,  in  which  absolute  standards  of  right  and  justice  do 
exist,  from  which  we  have  departed  and  to  which  we  are  try- 
ing to  get  back  or  toward  which  we  are  headed,  and  which  we 
are  trying  to  reach.  While  it  admits,  then,  that  our  present 
standards  of  right  and  justice  are  only  relative,  it  considers  the 
situation,  in  a  way,  temporary  and  abnormal.  It  has  always  in 
view  that  absolute  ideal,  that  fixed  constitution  of  things,  from 
which  we  have  departed  and  to  which  we  are  trying  to  get 
back,  or  to  which  we  are  headed  and  toward  which  we  are 
striving.  Its  ideal,  therefore,  is  an  absolute  situation  in  which 
absolute  standards  of  right  and  justice  hold,  and  in  its  actual 
rules  it  is  always  trying  to  approximate  these  absolute  standards. 
Its  search  then  is  always  for  absolute  standards  of  right  and 
justice  that  will  hold  for  all  time,  and,  at  bottom,  it  is  not 
evolutionary  and  relativistic  in  the  modern,  scientific  sense  but 
thoroughly  absolutistic. 

Hence,  its  decisions  are  always  based  on  an  assumed 
fixed  situation,  with  fixed  relationships,  and  fixed  standards 
of  right  and  justice,  existing  either  at  the  beginning  or  at 
the  end  of  things,  rather  than  on  the  actual  relationships  and 
relative  standards  of  rights  and  justice  at  the  present.  There- 
fore, it  can  proceed  only  on  the  basis  of  precedents  based  on 
an  assumed  fixed  past  situation  or  an  assumed  future  perfect 
state  of  things.  In  either  case  it  is  quite  out  of  harmony  with 
modern  evolutionary  relativistic  thought,  and  finds  great  dif- 
ficulty in  adapting  itself  to  the  existing  situation — in  reflecting 
and  meeting  existing  needs  and  conditions.  It  is  but  a  varia- 
tion of  the  absolutistic  theory  deriving  its  inspiration  and 
method  from  the  story  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  and  the  fall 
of  man,  or  from  the  Utopian  ideal  of  a  perfect  state.  In  the 
one  case  it  postulates  the  divine  architect  who  in  the  beginning 


2i6  TRADE  UNIONISM 

more  than  a  century  ago  and  almost  universally  rejected 
today.  It  therefore  tends  to  assume  that  social  ideals, 
conditions  and  relations  that  existed  more  than  a  cen- 
tury ago  exist  now.  It  tends  to  base  its  judgments  of 
right,  rights  and  relationships  on  the  conditions  and  rela- 
tions that  existed  more  than  a  century  ago.  Its  method  of 
procedure  is  that  of  precedent,  i.e.,  it  proceeds  on  the 
basis  of  fixed,  absolute  rules  of  judgment,  formulated  in 
the  past,  instead  of  on  the  basis  of  changing  and  de- 
veloping standards  based  on  present  and  developing  con- 
ditions and  relationships,  standards  and  ideals  of  justice 
and  welfare.  It  thus  tends  to  be  a  system  based  on 
logic  rather  than  on  life.  If  the  specific  decisions  in  re- 
gard to  the  relations  between  employers  and  the  labor 
groups  are  examined,  it  will  be  seen  that  all  through 
they  tend  to  be  logical  deductions  from  the  original 
premises.  An  injunction  is  a  civil  writ  issued  for  the 
protection  of  property  from  damage,  the  remedy  for 
which  cannot  be  had  by  criminal  procedure  but  by  civil 
suit  for  damages.  This  is  the  legal  theory.  Therefore, 
logically,  when  a  man  violates  an  injunction  he  cannot 
logically  ask  for  a  jury  trial.  Therefore,  logically,  his 
punishment  must  be  by  act  of  court  alone.  Hence, 
though  present  conditions  and  justice  demand  a  jury 
trial,  the  law  is  not  able  to  grant  it  to  him.  Its  logical 
principle  will  not  allow  this  adaptation  to  present  needs. 
2.  As  such,  our  law  is  individualistic  rather  than  so- 
cialized. It  postulates  the  individual  as  the  center  of  the 
universe  and  does  not  recognize  fully  the  existence  of 
social  groups  and  group  relationships.  It  therefore  does 
lot  know  how  to  deal  with  social  groups  and  group  re- 
created all  things  well;  in  the  other,  the  natural  order  which 
is  the  normal  situation. 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    217 

lationships  except  to  deny  their  normal  existence.  It 
knows  no  society  apart  from  an  aggregation  of  individ- 
uals and  no  social  welfare  apart  from  individual  wel- 
fare. It  is  concerned,  therefore,  primarily  in  upholding 
individual  rights,  or  in  acting  as  the  arbitrator  in  con- 
tests between  individuals  over  their  rights.  In  short,  it 
is  thoroughly  atomistic. 

3.  As  such,  our  law  tends  to  place  private  property 
rights  above  personal  and  social  rights.  It  places  pri- 
vate property  very  close  to  the  center  of  its  social  phi- 
losophy and  therefore  tends  everywhere  to  emphasize 
private  property  rights  at  the  expense  of  all  other  rights 
of  the  individual,  and  to  overlook  the  rights  of  society. 

4.  Hence,  the  law,  being  absolutistic,  individualistic, 
and  concerned  with  property  rights,  is  stiff,  inflexible,  in- 
elastic, and  ill-adapted  to  meet  the  conditions  of  a  chang- 
ing socialized  situation.  Its  decisions  are  based  on  a  sys- 
tem of  fixed  assumptions  and  rules.  These  assumptions 
and  rules  do  not  reflect  existing  conditions,  and  the  law 
does  not  know  how  to  create  new  assumptions  and  rules, 
since  from  its  standpoint  no  such  new  assumptions  and 
rules  can  have  any  valid  existence,  and  even  if  it  should 
admit  this,  its  eye  being  ever  fixed  on  the  past,  it  is  not 
sufficiently  acquainted  with  and  cannot  understand  the 
existing  developing  situation.  In  the  eye  of  the  law,  the 
relation  between  workers  and  employers  is  fundamen- 
tally what  it  was  when  the  law's  assumptions  and  rules 
were  established.  If  the  relation  has  changed  it  is  abnor- 
mal and  artificial.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  law  to  restore 
the  normal  or  natural  relationship.  Hence,  the  lawyers 
and  the  courts  have  not  felt  obliged  to  acquaint  them- 
selves thoroughly  with  the  existing  economic  situation 
and  relationship,  or,  if  they  have,  they  have  found  great 


21^  TRADE  UNIONISM 

difficulty  in  understanding  them  and  fully  acknowledg- 
ing them  as  they  are. 

5.  The  law  is  ultraconservative  and  acts  too  slowly 
to  meet  the  needs  of  changing  conditions — the  law's 
delays. 

6.  Nevertheless,  the  law  is  uncertain.  Examine  care- 
fully the  law  relating  to  the  status  of  labor  associations, 
i.e.,  relations  between  the  employing  and  labor  groups, 
and  you  will  see  that  it  is  vague,  shadowy  and  contradic- 
tory in  many  respects.    This  results  from  several  causes: 

(a)  from  the  conflict  between  the  two  contradictory 
concepts  at  work  in  determining  the  character  of  the 
law;  now  the  one,  now  the  other  holds  the  advantage; 

(b)  from  the  fact  that  the  interpretation  of  the  federal 
and  state  law  is  in  the  hands  of  different  sets  of  judges; 

(c)  from  the  fact  that  each  court,  federal  or  state,  is  a 
different  source  of  interpretation;  (d)  from  the  fact  that 
each  court  in  each  state  is  a  distinct  authority;  (e)  from 
the  fact  that  each  judge  to  an  extent  is  a  different  source 
of  interpretation;  (f)  from  the  fact  that  the  judges 
themselves  are  more  or  less  under  the  domination  of 
the  contradictory  principles  at  the  foundation  of  the 
law.  Hence,  by  picking  your  judges  and  your  court,  you 
can  get  varying  interpretations  of  the  law  as  between 
the  United  States  and  the  states,  as  between  the  states, 
as  between  the  courts,  and  as  between  the  judges.  It 
is  true  that  there  is  an  attempt  at  coordination  through 
a  series  of  judicial  hierarchies  with  a  system  of  appeals. 
But  at  the  outset  no  one  knows  what  the  law  is  or  means, 
and  to  follow  up  the  process  to  the  highest  court  takes 
much  time  and  money.  Only  the  employer  individually 
can  afford  to  do  this,  and  in  the  meantime  the  outcome 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    219 

is  uncertain.  And  even  the  highest  court  may  reverse 
itself. 

7.  The  law  is  undemocratic.  The  people  may  think 
they  know  what  they  want  and  what  is  for  social  wel- 
fare; the  employers  and  workers  may  agree  on  an  ad- 
justment of  their  relationships  and  on  the  basis  of  their 
decisions,  laws  may  be  enacted,  but  until  the  court  has 
spoken  this  may  not  be  law.  Whatever  the  excellence 
of  the  statute,  or  its  fitness  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  de- 
veloping situation,  if,  in  the  eye  of  the  law  and  the  mind 
of  the  courts,  it  violates  the  fundamental  and  unchange- 
able assumptions  and  rules  of  justice  conceived  in  the 
past  and  relating  to  a  past  situation,  and  if  somehow 
or  other  by  legal  fiction  it  cannot  be  made  to  appear  to 
be  in  harmony  with  these  assumptions  and  rules,  the 
courts  can  and  will  declare  it  no  law. 

This  brings  us  to  the  question  again:  Does  the  law 
as  it  stands  put  the  employing  and  the  working  group 
upon  an  equal  footing,  giving  equal  opportunity  to  the 
two  groups  in  the  working  out  of  their  own  problems, 
relationships  and  welfare,  and  if  not,  why  not?  To  an- 
swer this  question,  we  need  first  to  get  some  standard  of 
judgment  by  considering  the  relative  footing  or  bargain- 
ing power  of  the  individual  employer  and  the  individual 
workman  under  modern  economic  conditions;  next,  to 
examine  the  law  as  it  stands  in  the  light  of  this  standard 
of  judgment;  and  finally,  to  look  at  it  historically,  to 
examine  it  as  it  has  worked.  Let  us  then,  first,  consider 
the  relative  footing  or  bargaining  power  of  the  employer 
and  worker  under  modern  economic  conditions. 

Leaving  the  law  aside,  and  looking  only  at  the  modem 
economic  situation,  are  the  individual  employer  and  the 
individual  worker  on  an  equal   footing  or  bargaining 


5id  tRADE  UNIONISM 

power  and  if  not,  why  not?  First,  we  may  say  that  this 
may  have  been  true  in  the  period  of  handicraft  industry, 
before  the  development  of  machine  industry  and  modern 
capitalism.  It  may  have  been  true  when  hand  tools  were 
mainly  used,  when  these  hand  tools  represented  the  main 
item  in  industrial  capital,  industry  being  carried  on 
mainly  in  the  home,  when  the  capital  necessary  for  inde- 
pendent enterprise  was  very  small,  when  each  workman 
knew  the  whole  process  and  could  practice  the  whole 
trade,  and  when  any  workman,  therefore,  who  was  not 
satisfied  to  work  for  an  employer  could  easily  accumu- 
late or  acquire  capital  for  an  independent  enterprise  and 
have  the  knowledge  to  conduct  it. 

But  it  must  be  noted  that  since  the  handicraft  period 
the  essential  conditions  of  industry  have  enormously 
changed.  With  the  progressive  invention  of  machinery 
the  amount  of  capital  necessary  to  run  an  economic  enter- 
prise has  progressively  increased,  until  now  no  workman 
can  ordinarily  acquire  it.  Instead  of  a  few  tools,  a  cot- 
tage, and  a  small  fund  to  be  invested  in  materials,  costly 
machines  are  required  which  must  be  housed  in  costly 
factories  and  a  great  capital  fund  must  be  had  for  mate- 
rials and  other  exigencies.  The  capital  now  required 
for  a  successful  enterprise  must  ordinarily  be  reckoned 
not  in  hundreds  of  dollars  but  in  tens  and  hundreds  of 
thousands.  Thus,  the  modern  worker  who  is  not  satis- 
fied has  little  chance  to  set  up  for  himself. 

Moreover,  the  workman  no  longer  knows  his  trade  as 
he  did  under  the  handicraft  system.  Modern  capitalistic 
and  machine  industry  has  progressively  specialized  him, 
and  with  this  specialization  has  progressively  abolished 
the  system  of  apprenticeship  by  which  formerly  he  ac- 
quired knowledge  of  a  whole  trade  or  craft,  till  now  the 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    221 

average  workman  knows  only  one  or  a  few  minute  proc- 
esses connected  with  any  enterprise  and  has  no  means 
of  broadening  his  knowledge.  Therefore,  the  modern 
workman,  even  if  he  had  the  capital,  would  no  longer  be 
in  a  position  to  use  it  independently.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances the  modern  worker,  typically,  is  practically 
compelled  to  remain  a  workman  and  finds  himself  thus 
as  an  individual  compelled  to  bargain  with  an  employer 
who  owns  and  controls  large  amounts  of  capital  and 
machinery,  and  who  is  the  employer  of  a  large  body  of 
workmen.  The  question  then  is,  leaving  the  law  aside 
and  considering  only  the  economic  situation :  Is  the  in- 
dividual workman  under  these  modern  conditions  on  an 
equal  footing  or  on  equal  bargaining  terms  with  the 
employer,  and  if  not,  why  not?  We  can,  perhaps,  best 
get  at  this  question  by  asking  why  they  should  be  put 
on  an  equal  footing.  The  law  assumes  it,  therefore  we 
ask  it.  Experience  proves  that  when  they  are  not,  one 
side  takes  the  grossest  advantage  of  the  other,  and  there 
is  bound  to  be  on  the  whole  discord  of  interests,  and 
mutual  misunderstanding.  It  is  the  same  everywhere 
in  Hfe. 

Under  existing  conditions  the  bargaining  strength  of 
the  individual  employer  is  greater  than  that  of  the  indi- 
vidual worker  because  ( i )  the  employer  has  superior 
knowledge  of  market  conditions,  better  bargaining  skill, 
and  waiting  power ;  the  workers  are  confined  to. the  bench ; 
they  have  no  experience  in  buying  and  selling,  or  in 
market  prices;  no  knowledge  of  price  movements  nor 
foresight  as  to  them  1(2)  the  lesser  thing  is  at  stake  with 
the  employer — profits  as  against  life;  (3)  there  is 
always  an  actual  or  a  potential  over  supply  of  labor; 
there  is  always  unemployment — a  general  over-supply 


222  TRADE  UNIONISM 

and,  since  trades  are  minutely  specialized,  the  next 
lower  worker  is  always  in  competition  for  the  next 
higher  job;  (4)  the  weakest  employers  industrially 
and  pecuniarily  are  the  strongest  wage  bargain- 
ers— in  distress  they  must  take  it  out  of  the  workers 
or  go  to  the  wall;  (5)  the  competitive  strength  of  the 
labor  group  under  individual  bargaining  is  equal  only,  or 
tends  to  be  equal  only,  to  the  competitive  strength  of  its 
weakest  member;  (6)  the  full  bargaining  strength 
of  the  employer  usually  is  bound  to  be  exerted 
against  the  worker,  under  competitive  conditions,  be- 
cause of  the  pressure  of  the  consuming  public  for  cheap 
goods,  and  because  the  most  unscrupulous  employer  sets 
the  pace;  under  monopolistic  conditions,  impersonality 
produces  the  same  results.  Therefore,  under  modern 
conditions,  the  worker  is  not  on  an  equal  footing  with 
the  employer  unless  he  is  allowed  to  combine  or  act  col- 
lectively without  doubt  or  hampering. 

With  this  economic  situation  in  view  let  us  now  turn 
to  the  law  and  examine  this  question  of  equal  footing. 
Has  the  law  taken  into  account  these  facts  and  been  so 
developed  as  t6  redress  the  disadvantages  of  the  worker? 
Or,  does  it  still  proceed  as  if  the  employers  and 
workmen  were  essentially  in  the  same  relative  economic 
situation  as  in  the  handicraft  stage  when  the  individual 
workman  and  the  individual  employer  were  apparently 
on  an  equal  footing,  and  by  so  doing  does  it  place  the 
modern  worker  at  a  great  disadvantage  relative- to  the 
modern  employer? 

The  first  step  toward  a  specific  understanding  of  the 
present  law  regarding  the  rights  or  legal  status  of  .labor 
and  the  employer,  with  a  view  to  testing  it  in  the  man- 
ner suggested  above,  is  to  get  before  us  a  general  outline 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    223 

of  the  present  situation.    In  general  the  following  would 
appear  to  be  a  summary  of  its  main  features :  ^ 

1.  In  the  typical  cases,  under  the  present  economic  or 
legal  organization,  the  employer  furnishes,  owns  and 
controls  the  material  and  pecuniary  means  of  produc- 
tion— the  capital,  land,  buildings,  machinery,  tools  and 
the  raw  materials.  Subject  to  general  restrictions  on 
illegal  acts  and  to  the  police  power  of  the  state,  he  is  a 
free  agent  in  the  disposition  of  the  means  of  production. 
He  cannot  be  compelled  to  put  or  to  keep  them  in  produc- 
tive use;  he  is  free  to  hire  or  to  refuse  to  hire  whomever 
it  may  please  him  as  workmen,  and  to  discharge  work- 
ers at  will  subject  to  the  terms  of  his  contracts  with 
them.^ 

2.  The  worker  has  no  legal  right  to  work,  being  wholly 
dependent  upon  his  ability  to  find  some  employer  who  is 
able  and  willing  to  give  him  employment. 

3.  The  individual  laborer,  subject  to  general  restric- 
tions on  illegal  acts,  so  long  as  he  does  not  interfere 
with  the  rights  and  freedom  of  action  of  others,  is  a 
free  agent  with  respect  to  the  disposition  of  his  labor 
power.  He  cannot  legally  be  compelled  to  labor,  and  is 
free,  subject  to  the  above  restrictions,  to  apply  his  labor 

*  Any  attempt  on  the  part  of  a  layman  to  present  the  legal 
situation  may  be  assumed  offhand  to  be  faulty.  Students  must, 
therefore,  take  what  follows  to  be  a  tentative  statement,  and 
they  should  subject  it  as  far  as  possible  to  legal  criticism.  Only 
a  few  typical  cases  are  cited,  and  the  student  should  consult 
Clark,  The  Law  of  the  Employment  of  Labor;  Cooke,  The 
Law  of  Combinations,  Monopolies  and  Labor  Unions;  and 
Commons  and  Andrews,  Principles  of  Laibor  Legislation. 

^  To  the  following  general  statements  there  are  certain 
specific  modifications  which  it  should  be  the  purpose  of  our 
study  to  disclose  and  account  for. 


224  TRADE  UNIONISM 

power  where  and  on  what  terms  it  may  please  him,  or  as 
circumstances  may  compel  him ;  to  work  under  what  cir- 
cumstances, for  what  wage  he  pleases  and  to  quit  at 
will,  subject  to  the  terms  of  his  contract. 

4.  The  above  statements  are  subject  to  exception  un- 
der the  state's  right  of  eminent  domain  and  its  police 
power.  The  state  has  the  right  to  take  and  use  property 
for  public  purposes,  to  suppress  seditious  acts  and  to 
abate  nuisances;  to  enforce  the  maintenance  of  con- 
tracts; to  regulate  dangerous  insanitary  conditions,  etc. 
The  state  may  also  interfere  in  many  ways  where  it  can 
be  shown  that  the  contracting  parties  are  not  full  indi- 
viduals, acting  without  coercion  or  restraint,  and  where 
the  laborers  are  women  or  minors. 

5.  The  relations  between  the  employer  and  the  laborer 
are,  in  general,  those  of  free  contracting  parties.  The 
employer  contracts  to  provide  the  laborer  with  a  certain 
kind  of  employment  for  a  specified  period  at  a  specified 
wage ;  the  claim  of  the  worker  is  liquidated  by  the  wage, 
except  in  special  cases,  and  under  special  conditions,  com- 
ing under  the  employer's  liability  for  accident  and  death. 
The  ownership  and  disposal  of  the  product  and  the  good- 
will of  the  business  rest  entirely  with  the  employer,  sub- 
ject to  a  lien  of  the  worker  in  case  of  bankruptcy. 

6.  The  employer  and  the  individual  workers  are  thus, 
in  the  eye  of  the  law,  and  by  commonplace  assumption, 
on  a  plane  of  strict  economic  equality. 

7.  The  wage  contract,  including  hours  and  conditions 
of  employment,  is  generally  assumed  by  the  law  to  be  be- 
tween the  individual  employer  and  the  individual  work- 
man. Originally,  only  individual  bargaining  was  legal. 
Any  combination  of  employers  or  workers  which  inter- 
fered with  or  modified  such  individual  bargaining  was 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    225 

conspiracy  In  restraint  of  trade,  and,  as  such,  illegal  and 
punishable.  Latterly,  combinations  to  affect  the  wage 
bargain  in  certain  ways  have  been  ruled  lawful  by  the 
courts  or  authorized  by  statute.^ 

8.  In  general,  there  is  no  limit  set  by  law  upon  the 
wage  which  any  laborer  may  contract  for  and  receive. 
The  worker  is  free  to  force  the  wage  as  high,  the  em- 
ployer to  force  it  as  low,  as  free  individual  bargaining 
will  permit.  This  rule  is  sometimes  subject  to  modifica- 
tion in  the  case  of  women  and  minors. 

9.  There  is  no  limit  set  by  law  upon  the  hours  per 
day  or  week  for  which  the  laborer  may  contract  to  work. 
The  worker  is  free  to  force  the  hours  to  as  small  a  num- 
ber, the  employer  to  force  them  to  as  great  a  number  as 
free  bargaining  will  permit.  This  rule  is  subject  to  ex- 
ceptions: the  government,  national,  state  or  municipal, 
may  set  limits  for  itself,  as  employer,  by  statute  or 
ordinance  and  may  limit  in  this  respect  contracting  em- 
ployers doing  work  for  it.  This  rule  has  also  been  modi- 
fied in  certain  specific  industries  and  for  certain  classes 
of  workers,  but,  as  applied  to  adult  male  labor,  holds 
generally. 

10.  The  method  of  remuneration,  the  mode,  time,  and 
material  character  of  wages  payment,  are,  for  the  most 
part,  matters  of  free  contract,  though  statutory  restric- 
tions have,  to  a  considerable  extent,  modified  this  rule. 

11.  The  freedom  of  contract  between  the  employer 
and  the  worker  has  been  greatly  restricted  with  refer- 
ence to  the  welfare  of  the  worker  and  society  at  large. 
The  worker  cannot  contract  with  the  employer  for  the 
doing  of  illegal  acts,  or  be  forced  to  perform  such  acts. 
By  common  law,  the  employer  is  bound  to  furnish  rea- 

*  See  cases  cited  below. 


226  TRADE  UNIONISM 

sonably  safe  conditions  of  work  for  his  employees.  A 
great  mass  of  statutory  law  has  been  enacted,  varying 
with  the  different  states,  designed  to  protect  the  health 
and  secure  the  safety  and  comfort  of  the  workers  in 
factories,  mines,  workshops  and  other  places  of  employ- 
ment. 

12.  Under  the  common  law,  the  employer  is  liable  to 
the  worker  for  injury  and  death  caused  by  accident  in 
the  regular  performance  of  his  duties,  but  only  where 
it  can  be  shown  that  the  employer  has  not  exercised  rea- 
sonable care,  and  he  may  set  up  the  defenses  of  contribu- 
tory negligence,  the  neglect  or  disobedience  of  a  fellow 
servant,  contracting  out,  and  assumption  of  risk  on  the 
part  of  the  worker.  The  actual  liability  of  the  employer, 
under  the  common  law,  is  generally  determined  by  suit 
and  jury  trial,  but  the  judge  determines  all  points  of 
law. 

Recently,  many  states  have  enacted  statutes  dealing 
with  the  subject  of  workingmen's  compensation,  which 
generally  greatly  restrict  the  employer's  defenses  and  fix 
definite  payments  to  be  made  for  accident  or  death  di- 
rectly by  the  employer  or  through  state  insurance.  These 
laws  also  are  designed  to  secure  greater  safety  for  the 
workers. 

13.  Aside,  however,  from  what  is  contained  in  the 
various  employers'  liability  and  workingmen's  compen- 
sation acts,  there  is  no  legal  provision  for  the  worker  in 
the  case  of  sickness,  superannuation  or  death. 

14.  As  stated  above,  the  laborer  has  no  guaranteed 
right  to  work.  No  statutory  provision  is  made  in  this 
country  covering  unemployment,  except  through  the  pro- 
visions gf  free  state  and  city  employment  bureaus. 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    227 

With  respect  to  combined  action  on  the  part  of  labor- 
ers, the  present  situation  is,  in  general,  as  follows :  ^ 

^  Suppose  that  some  workers  in  a  craft  organize  into  a  local 
and  then  into  a  national  union.  In  what  relation  to  the  law 
are  the  unionists  or  the  union  in  each  case,  and  how  does 
the  law  affect  the  union  in  each  case?  Is  it  fair  in  each  case 
as  between  the  unions  and   employers? 

(a)  Their  purpose  is  to  better  conditions  of  employment, 
hours,  wages,  etc. 

(b)  They  attempt  to  force  all  the  workers  in  the  craft  to 
join. 

(c)  They  attempt  to  force  their  own  recalcitrant  members 
to  live  up  to  union  rules  by  ostracism,  expulsion  and  endeavor- 
ing to  secure  discharge. 

(d)  They  demand  that  employers  discharge  those  who  do 
not  live  up  to  rules. 

(e)  They  make  demands  upon  a  local  employer  for  higher 
wages  and  union  officers  threaten  him  with  a  strike. 

(f)  Strike  is  called  in  one  locality  to  enforce  demands 
for  recognition  of  the  union  and  the  closed  shop. 

(g)  The  union  establishes  pickets. 

(h)  Union  pickets  follow  those  who  continue  to  work  and 
try  to  persuade  them  to  quit. 

(i)   Later  they  threaten  them. 

(j)  Finally  they  "beat"  one  of  them  up. 

(k)  They  try  to  prevent  the  employers  from  bringing  in 
new  workers  and  importing  strike  breakers. 

(1)   They  hold  street  meetings  and  denounce  the  employer. 

(m)  They  threaten  to  do  damage  to  the  property  of  the 
employer  but  do  not. 

(n)   They  do,  however,  affect  his  production,  sales  and  profit. 

(0)  An  injunction  is  issued  forbidding  them  to  congregate 
near  his  plant,  but  they  still  picket. 

(p)  Failing  to  move  the  employer,  and  because  he  is  being 
supported  by  the  members  of  the  employers'  association,  they 
call  out  in  strike  the  workers  in  other  shops  owned  by  these 
employers. 

(q)  They  refuse  to  buy  the  products  of  the  struck  shop. 


228  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Combinations  of  workers  in  trade  unions  for  the  purpose 
of  affecting  the  wage  rate  and  conditions  of  employment, 
are,  as  stick,  lawful.  Unions  in  themselves  are  lawful 
so  long  as  they  do  no  unlawful  acts,  i.e.,  the  combination 
for  lawful  purposes  is  not  unlawful.  But  no  man  can 
lawfully  surrender  his  rights,  and  the  unions  are  lawful 
only  so  long  as  they  do  not  infringe  on  the  rights  of  their 
members,  other  laborers,  employers,  or  society.  This  im- 
plies that  they  do  not  interfere  with  the  right  of  any 
worker  to  refuse  union  membership,  to  violate  union 
rules,  to  work  where,  when,  for  whom,  for  what,  and 
under  what  conditions,  if  lawful,  he  pleases;  or,  with  the 
right  of  the  employers  to  hire  whom  they  will,  refuse 
to  hire  union  men  exclusively,  discharge  at  will,  trade 
with  whom  they  will;  that  they  do  not  appear  to  the 
courts  to  restrain  trade  in  any  way;  that  their  intent  is 
not  to  do  any  of  these  things,  and  that  they  do  not  at- 

(r)  They  refuse  to  trade  with  dealers  who  sell  the  products 
of  the  struck  shop. 

(s)  They  call  upon  other  unionists  to  refuse  thus  to  trade 
by  publishing  the  names  of  employers  and  dealers  unfair  to 
union  labor. 

(t)  Finally,  they  win  the  strike  and  enter  into  a  collective 
agreement  with  the  employer  on  the  basis  of  recognition  of  the 
union  and  the  closed  shop. 

(u)  The  employer  blacklists  active  members  of  the  union. 

(v)  The  employer  refuses  to  live  up  to  the  terms  of  the 
collective  agreement  and  the  union  tries  to  force  him  to 
arbitrate. 

(w)  They  arbitrate,  but  the  employer  refuses  to  accept  the 
terms  of  the  award. 

(x)  The  union  tries  to  enforce  the  collective  agreement  as 
a  contract  at  law. 

(y)  The  employer  tries  to  sue  for  damages  received  during 
th^  strike,  damage  to  business  and  to  tangible  property. 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    229 

tempt  to  enforce  any  of  these  things  by  any  act  that  may 
be  interpreted  by  the  courts  as  constituting  intimidation, 
coercion,  or  violence  or  threats  thereof.  But  unions, 
being  restraining  combinations,  may,  with  the  greatest 
facihty,  become  in  their  actions  combinations  in  illegal 
restraint  of  trade.  As  our  law  fundamentally  was  con- 
ceived for  an  individualistic  society,  in  an  era  when  the 
competitive  ideal  was  uppermost,  and  among  its  main 
purposes  are  therefore  the  protection  of  freedom  of  in- 
dividual contract,  freedom  of  trade,  free  industrial  ac- 
tion of  individuals  and  property  right,  and  as  the  aim  of 
the  unions  is  to  protect  their  members  against  the  ef- 
fects of  these  things,  and  their  main  policies  are  directed 
against  them,  the  legality  of  unions  tends  to  mean  little 
in  fact.  As  such,  they  are  legal,  but  as  soon  as  they 
function  they  easily  become  lawless.® 

The  innocent  and  lawful  act  of  combining  for  mutual 
benefit  passes  into  conspiracy  when  threats  or  intimida- 
tion and  violence  are  adopted  as  means  of  enforcing  the 
demands  of  the  associations  on  employers  or  third  per- 
sons. Any  conspiracy  in  restraint  of  trade  is  unlawful, 
under  the  common  law,  and  sometimes  by  statute,  and 
there  seems  to  be  no  certain  rule  what  the  courts  will 
hold  to  be  conspiracy  in  restraint  of  trade.  Many  state 
statutes  have  been  enacted  tending  to  exempt  unions 
from  the  application  of  the  rule  of  combination  in  re- 
straint of  trade,  and  to  exempt  labor  agreements  from 
the  category  of  conspiracies.  Organized  labor,  for  twen- 
ty-four years,  after  the  enactment  of  the  Sherman  Anti- 
trust Law,  made  strenuous  efforts  to  secure  the  exemp- 
tion of  labor  combinations   from  its   application.     On 

«  Mitchell  et  al.  v.  Hetchman  Coal  &  Coke  Co.,  214  Fed.  685 
(1914)  ;  Curran  v.  Galen,  183  N.  Y.  207  (1905). 


^3d  TRADE  UNIONISM 

October   15,    191 4,   it  succeeded  in  securing  the  enact- 
ment of  the  Clayton  Law.     Section  6  of  this  law  reads : 

That  the  labor  of  a  human  being  is  not  a  commodity  or 
article  of  commerce.  Nothing  contained  in  the  antitrust 
laws  shall  be  construed  to  forbid  the  existence  or  operation 
of  labor,  agricultural,  or  horticultural  organizations,  insti- 
tuted for  the  purpose  of  mutual  help,  and  not  having  a  capi- 
tal stock,  or  conducted  for  profit,  or  to  forbid  or  restrain  in- 
dividual members  of  such  organizations  from  lawfully  carry- 
ing out  the  legitimate  objects  thereof ;  nor  shall  such  organ- 
izations, or  members  thereof,  be  construed  to  be  illegal  com- 
binations or  conspiracies  in  restraint  of  trade  under  the 
antitrust  laws. 

It  is  to  be  understood  that  both  the  Sherman  and  the 
Clayton  Acts  and  the  decisions  of  the  courts  with  respect 
to  the  former  hold  only  within  Federal  jurisdiction. 
They  do  not  affect  the  action  of  state  legislatures  or 
state  courts  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  states.  More- 
over, the  constitutionality  of  the  Clayton  Act  has  not 
yet  been  tested.  A  similar  law  in  Massachusetts  was 
declared  unconstitutional  by  the  state  court  in  May, 
1916.^ 

When  incorporated,  the  unions  are  subject  to  general 
rules,  applying  to  corporations,  with  statutory  excep- 
tions, often  discriminating  in  favor  of  the  unions.  When 
unincorporated  the  unions,  in  the  strict  application  of  the 
common  law,  cannot  sue  or  be  sued,  nor,  if  incapacity 
be  pleaded,  be  enjoined,  and  no  judgment  will  lie  against 
them.  Individual  members  are  liable  for  contracts.  But, 
in  practice,  of  late,  there  seems  to  be  a  tendency  for  the 
courts  to  create  the  doctrine  that  the  union  can  be  sued, 

^  Bogui  V.  Perotti,  112  N.  E.  853  (1916). 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    231 

that  judgments  will  lie  against  its  property,  first,  and 
then  against  the  property  of  its  members.  This  tendency 
seems  to  rest  upon  a  growing  fiction  that,  though  not 
an  organization  for  holding  property  or  doing  business, 
the  union  is  a  partnership.  Damage  suits  will  lie  against 
unions  or  union  members  for  injurious  interference  with 
employment  or  business  in  connection  with  labor  dis- 
putes.^ 

The  union  may  call  and  conduct  strikes  legally,  of 
course,  even  though  such  strikes  interfere  with  the  free 
conduct  of  the  employer's  business,  and  may  cause  the 
discharge  and  prevent  the  free  employment  of  individual 
workers  if  the  main  purpose  of  the  strike  is  the  benefit  of 
the  members  of  the  union.  The  strike  is  not  lawful, 
however,  if  it  has  for  its  main  purpose  the  injury  of  the 
employer  or  of  other  workers,  or  if  it  is  conducted  in  an 
illegal  manner,  the  court,  of  course,  to  determine  upon 
these  matters.  But  a  strike  to  secure  employment  of 
none  but  members  of  the  union  is  lawful  if  the  motive 
is  apparently  the  benefit  of  the  membership  and  not  an 
attack  on  others  wantonly  or  maliciously  to  deprive  them 
of  employment.  The  assumption  that  workers  would 
strike  wantonly  and  maliciously  to  deprive  others  of  em- 
ployment shows  how,  by  taking  cognizance  of  motive, 
under  the  doctrine  of  conspiracy,  the  workers  are  at  the 
mercy  of  the  arbitrary  discretion  of  the  court.  If  the 
court  does  not  understand  the  union  viewpoint,  such  as 
the  significance  of  the  demand  for  recognition  or  for 
the  standard  rate,  or  for  the  control  of  the  working  per- 
sonnel, it  must  judge  motives  by  what  it  considers  re- 
sults, and  thus  may  decide  that  no  sufficient  motive  of 
self -benefit  exists  and  so  the  strike  must  be  for  mali- 

'Lawlor  v.  Loewe,  235  U,  S.  522  (1915).    Danbury  hatters. 


232  TRADE  UNIONISM 

cious  injury,  when  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  strike  is,  in 
the  view  of  the  union,  solely  for  the  benefit  of  its  mem- 
bership. 

Sympathetic  strikes  against  employers  where  no  direct 
grievance  exists  to  force  other  employers  to  make  con- 
cessions to  workmen,  such  as  a  strike  to  prevent  the  use 
of  materials  produced  by  a  struck  firm,  are  illegal  as 
interference  wdth  freedom  of  trade.  The  law  limxits  the 
right  of  organized  workers  to  use  the  strike  solely  as  a 
means  of  influencing  persons  with  whom  the  trade  dis- 
pute actually  exists,  without  involving  disinterested 
parties,  the  court  to  decide.  Thus  the  law,  built  on  the 
individualistic  basis,  refuses  to  recognize  that  one  group 
of  workers  in  a  union  is  vitally  affected  by  or  interested 
in  the  conditions  of  another  group  even  in  the  same  un- 
ion, and  in  this  it  fails  to  recognize  the  interrelationship 
of  the  modern  evolving  industrial  situation.  It  cannot 
do  so,  while  it  is  based  on  the  absolutistic  assumptions 
of  individual  freedom  and  free  competition.  On  the 
basis  of  these  assumptions,  it  has  little  capacity  for  deal- 
ing with  developed  and  developing  machine  industry.® 

The  striking  workmen  may  peacefully  persuade  other 
workers  to  leave  the  employ  of  the  master  or  not  to  en- 
gage to  work  for  him,  but  may  not  make  use  of  vio- 
lence or  of  any  force  or  intimidation.  What  constitutes 
violence,  force  or  intimidation  is  determined  first  by  the 
police,  and  finally  by  the  courts.  All  destruction  of  the 
property  or  direct  interference  with  the  conduct  of  the 
business  of  the  employer  is  forbidden.  Where  picketing 
is  in  aid  of  an  unlawful  strike,  or  is  accompanied  by  vio- 
lence or  by  such  a  display  of  force  or  numbers  as  to 
Intimidate  workmen  or  the  public,  or  to  obstruct  the 

•De  Minico  v.  Craig,  207  Mass.  593  (1911). 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    233 

highways,  or  approaches  of  business  or  employment,  it 
is  unlawful.  If  it  appears  that  the  purpose  is  to  inter- 
fere with  those  passing  into  or  out  of  the  works,  or  those 
wishing  to  pass  into  the  works,  by  other  than  persua- 
sive means,  it  is  illegal.  If  the  design  is  to  see  who  can 
be  the  subject  of  persuasive  inducements,  it  is  legal. 
Obtrusion  upon  others  to  impose  upon  them  arguments 
or  persuasion  to  which  they  are  unwilling  to  listen  is 
unlawful;  since  strike  breakers,  by  the  very  nature  of 
the  case,  must,  or  are  determined,  to  seek  employment, 
the  courts  may  declare  any  effort  to  prevent  them  from 
doing  so  unlawful.  In  general,  the  courts  have  the  power 
in  such  matters  to  hold  the  balance  of  power  between  the 
workers  and  the  employers.  They  can  make  or  mar 
any  efforts  of  the  organized  workers  to  better  their  rela- 
tions with  unwilling  employers.  They  hold  the  practi- 
cal destinies  of  militant  unionism  in  their  hands.  If, 
as  judges,  they  are  closely  identified  in  viewpoint  with 
the  employers,  they  can  destroy  any  practical  equality 
of  legal  relationship  between  the  two  forces. ^"^ 

The  employer  may  hire  strike  breakers  at  will,  and  in 
case  of  fear  of  irreparable  injury  to  property  may  secure 
an  injunction  from  the  court  restraining  the  workers 
from  interfering  in  any  way  with  his  business.  An  in- 
junction is  an  order  issuing  from  a  court  of  equity  for 
the  purpose  of  preventing  injury  or  of  preserving  the 
status  quo  until  the  final  determination  of  rights.  It  is 
classed  as  an  extraordinary  remedy,  usually  for  the  pro- 
tection of  property  or  property  rights  and  is  to  be  re- 
sorted to  only  when  the  remedy  at  law  is  inadequate, 
as  where  the  injury  done  or  threatened  is  of  such  a  na- 
ture that,  when  accomplished,  the  property  cannot  be  re- 

"  Atchison.  T.  &  S.  F.  Ry.  v.  Gee,  139  Fed.  582  (1905). 


234  TRADE  UNIONISM 

stored  to  its  original  condition  or  cannot  be  replaced  by 
means  of  compensation  in  money,  or  where  full  compen- 
sation for  the  entire  wrong  cannot  be  obtained  without 
resort  to  a  number  of  suits. 

In  the  practical  application  of  the  injunction,  the 
courts  appear  inclined  to  consider  almost  anything  as  a 
property  right  and  almost  any  act  of  strikers  a  possible 
irreparable  violation  of  property  right.  Thus,  while  in- 
junctions will  not  issue  to  restrain  libel  or  slander  they 
will  restrain  the  use  of  unfair  lists,  boycott  notices,  and 
the  like,  considered  as  intimidating  or  coercive.  In  prac- 
tice, injunctions  may  issue  to  cover  almost  any  human 
act  which  the  court  may  deem  productive  of  irreparable 
injury  to  property.  For  instance,  in  the  Buck's  Stove 
and  Range  case,  the  injunction  prohibited  the  officers  of 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  officers  and  mem- 
bers of  affiliated  unions,  agents,  friends,  sympathizers, 
counsel,  conspirators  and  co-conspirators  from  making 
any  reference  whatever  to  the  fact  that  the  Buck's  Com- 
pany had  ever  been  in  any  dispute  with  labor,  or  to  the 
fact  that  the  Company  had  ever  been  regarded  as  un- 
fair, had  ever  been  on  any  unfair  list,  or  on  a  "we  don't 
patronize"  Hst  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  or 
of  any  other  organization,  and  also  prohibited  any  per- 
son from  either  directly  or  indirectly  referring  to  any 
such  controversy  by  printed,  written  or  spoken  word. 

Injunctions  may  be  specific,  i.e.,  directed  against  a 
particular  individual,  or  they  may  be  blanket  or  "John 
Doe"  injunctions  directed  against  any  person  or  persons 
whatever.  Their  violation  is  contempt  of  court.  The 
fact  of  violation  is  determined  by  the  judge  issuing  the 
injunction  and  the  punishment  is  meted  out  by  him. 
There  is  no  trial  by  jury.     Injunctions  cannot  be  made 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    235 

permanent  except  after  hearing  the  defendant.  The  in- 
junction may  paralyze  the  action  of  the  union  during 
the  run  of  the  preHminary  or  interlocutory  decree  even 
though  this,  on  hearing,  may  be  found  to  be  altogether 
invalid.  As  the  hearing  may  not  take  place  for  some 
weeks,  the  cause  of  the  union  may  be  absolutely  lost 
meantime,  for  unionists  stand  in  great  fear  of  injunc- 
tions. Violation,  even  of  the  preliminary  decree,  which 
may  be  invalid,  means  contempt  of  court,  and  fine  or  im- 
prisonment at  the  discretion  of  the  judge  issuing  the 
injunction,  with  no  right  of  trial  by  jury.*^  Unionists 
generally  claim  that  injunctions  should  not  issue  in  labor 
disputes,  but  that  cases  involving  injuries  to  property 
during  such  disputes  should  take  the  regular  course  of 
adjudication  afterward,  and  that  contempt  cases  should 
also  be  settled  by  jury  trial.  The  Federal  law  in  rela- 
tion to  this  matter  of  injunctions  has  been  modified  con- 
siderably in  the  direction  of  the  union  viewpoint  by  the 
Clayton  Anti-Trust  Act  (§§  20-25). 

The  legal  status  of  the  closed  shop  is  somewhat  am- 
biguous. The  general  rule  seems  to  be  that  the  closed 
shop  will  be  considered  legal,  if  the  primary  purpose  is 
to  benefit  the  members  of  the  union  rather  than  to  in- 
jure nonmembers,  if  the  agreement  does  not  cover  a 
field  so  broad  that  it  practically  makes  membership  in 
the  union  necessary  for  employment  at  the  trade,  or  if 
the  agreement  is  strictly  voluntary  and  enforced  by  no 
coercion  or  intimidation.  Otherwise  the  closed  shop  will 
be  considered  illegal.  This  means  that  the  legality  or 
illegality  of  the  closed  shop  depends  practically  upon  the 
viewpoint  of  the  court,  for  usually  courts  can  be  found 
to  hold  against  practically  any  closed  shop  agreement  In 

"  In  re  Debs,  158  U.  S.  564  (1895). 


i2lo  TRADE  UNIONISM 

any  of  the  above  situations.  We  see  here  also  how  the 
legal  status  of  the  union  may  depend  upon  what  the 
-courts  deem  to  be  motive  and  effect,  though  practically 
the  courts  know  little  usually  in  regard  to  union  pur- 
poses, i.e.,  why  things  really  are  done  by  the  unions.^^ 

Under  the  common  law,  the  union  label  is  not  given  the 
protection  of  the  trade-mark.  No  injunction  can  re- 
strain its  unauthorized  use.  Quite  commonly,  however, 
it  is  protected  by  statute  law. 

Collective  agreements  are  not  unlawful  when  they  do 
not  violate  the  law  through  their  terms.  Injunctions 
may  prevent  union  officers  from  counseling  violation  of 
agreements.  But  the  law  considers  the  real  contract  to 
be  between  the  individuals  concerned,  hence,  collective 
agreements  do  not  prevent  termination  of  individual  con- 
tracts at  will,  on  the  ground  that  the  contract  did  not  call 
for  the  employment  of  particular  individuals,  but  only 
of  individuals  of  a  certain  class.  Therefore,  specific  pro- 
visions of  individual  contracts,  not  in  harmony  with  the 
collective  agreement,  cannot  be  prevented.  The  union 
itself,  unincorporated,  cannot  be  sued  for  a  violation  of 
the  agreement. ^^ 

The  combination  of  workmen  may  boycott  their  em- 
ployer, that  is,  refuse  to  purchase  his  products,  and  un- 
less their  acts  are  construed  by  the  courts  as  in  restraint 
of  trade,  may  persuade  others  to  do  so.  But  the  sec- 
ondary boycott,  the  boycott  of  the  merchant  who  sells 
the  goods  of  the  employer,  is  unlawful. ^^ 

The  blacklist  is  virtually  legal  where,  as  is  usually  the 

*2Curran  v.  Galen,  152  N.  Y.  (1897) ;  Jacobs  v.  Cohen,  183 
N.  Y.  207  (1905). 
^5  Hudson  V.  Cincinnati,  etc.,  R.  R.  Co.,  152  Ky.  711   (1913)- 
"Loewe  v.  Lavvlor,  208  U.  S.  274  (1908). 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    237 

case,  it  amounts  to  mere  exchange  of  information,  leav- 
ing the  employer  free  to  act  on  his  own  judgment.  This, 
in  practice,  takes  the  form  of  concerted  information,  or 
lists  kept  by  associations  of  employers  giving  informa- 
tion in  regard  to  v^orkmen  on  the  basis  of  which  they  are 
given  or  refused  employment.  The  Metal  Trades  Asso- 
ciation had  some  years  ago  a  card  catalogue  of  this 
kind  which,  it  was  claimed,  contained  60,000  names.  The 
object  is  sometimes  secured  by  a  white  list,  or  by  an 
employment  or  clearance  card  or  book  which  must  be 
presented  to  secure  employment  and  surrendered  while  in 
employ.  Statutes  attempting  to  prevent  employers  from 
coercing  men  into  withdrawing  from  unions  by  threaten- 
ing them  with  discharge  are  held  unconstitutional.^^ 

A  careful  reading  of  the  foregoing  will  show  that  the 
law,  as  interpreted  by  the  courts,  is  in  effect  a  series  of 
logical  deductions  from  a  set  of  basic  premises  or  prin- 
ciples. When  it  fails  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  justice 
it  is  not  usually  because  the  court  is  biased  but  because 
logical  deductions  from  a  set  of  fixed  absolutistic  prin- 
ciples cannot  meet  the  needs  of  developing  social  ideals 
and  relationships.  In  general,  the  courts  through  their 
unchallenged  right  to  interpret  the  meaning  and  consti- 
tutionality of  law  which  is  based,  as  we  have  seen,  first, 
on  the  assumption  of  a  natural  order  and  absolute  natural 
rights,  as  expressed  in  the  common  law,  which  is  itself  a 
creation  of  the  courts,  and  as  confirmed  by  written  con- 
stitutions, have  much  more  actual  power  in  determining 
the  rights  and  legal  status  of  labor  and  the  employers 
than  the  legislatures  and  the  people. 

^^  Adair  v.  U.  S.,  208  U.  S.  161  (1908) ;  Coppage  v.  Kansas, 
35  Super.  Ct.  240  (1915)- 


238  TRADE  UNIONISM 

The  law,  in  so  far  as  it  assumes  to  represent  the  es- 
sence of  positive  justice  but  reflects  the  relations  of  handi- 
craft industry,  has  no  comprehension  of  modern  indus- 
trial conditions,  nor  of  their  inevitable  consequences,  and 
no  modes  of  dealing  with  them  except  by  prohibition.  It 
has  no  comprehension  of  a  machinery  for  dealing  out  jus- 
tice in  a  state  of  society  changed  and  changing  from  that 
in  which  it  was  conceived.  Being  actually  unable  to  out- 
law combination,  for  industrial  forces  are  more  com- 
pelling than  legal  restraint,  not  being  wholly  uncognizant 
of  the  injustice  worked  by  its  arbitrary  decrees,  but  un- 
able to  give  up  its  preevolutionary  standpoint,  it  is 
obliged  to  seek  actual  justice  by  shuffling,  halting,  round- 
about methods  and  disingenuous  distinctions  which  vary 
with  the  intelligence  and  bias  of  the  particular  courts. 
As  the  law  in  spirit  is  individualistic,  as  it  makes  the 
freedom  and  sacredness  of  individual  contract  the  touch- 
stone of  absolute  justice,  and  as  the  unions  are  formed 
to  escape  the  evils  of  individualism  and  individual  com- 
petition and  contract,  and  all  the  union  acts  in  positive 
support  of  these  purposes  do  involve  coercion,  the  law 
cannot  help  being  in  spirit  inimical  to  unionism.  Union- 
ism is  in  its  very  essence  a  lawless  thing,  in  its  very 
purpose  and  spirit  a  challenge  to  the  law.  Hence,  even 
where  the  judges  are  understanding  and  intend  to 
be  sympathetic  to  unionism,  if  they  are  true  to  the  law 
they  must  tend  to  be  unfair  to  unionism. 

The  English  and  American  law  in  its  fundamental 
concepts  of  free  contract,  individual  liberty,  and  prop- 
erty rights,  was  the  crystallization  of  the  social  philoso- 
phy of  the  rising  bourgeois  or  employing  class,  and  still, 
in  general,  expresses  the  viewpoint  of  that  class.  Law- 
yers are  trained  in  it  and  soaked  with  this  philosophy. 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    239 

Judges,  therefore,  inevitably  tend  to  look  at  unions  and 
labor  controversies  with  the  eye  of  the  employer.  And 
judges  help  make  the  law. 

These  are  some  of  the  reasons  that  account  for  the 
ambiguous  and  weak  legal  status  of  unionism  and  for 
the  general  attitude  of  the  unionists  toward  the  law. 

With  the  purpose  of  determining  whether  the  law  as  it 
stands  puts  the  employing  and  working  groups  on  an 
equal  footing,  giving  equal  opportunity  to  the  two  groups 
in  working  out  their  problems,  relationships  and  w^elfare, 
and  whether  it  furnishes  an  adequate  basis  for  construc- 
tive social  effort  in  the  interest  of  labor  and  social  wel- 
fare, we  have  examined  its  fundamental  basis  and  gen- 
eral characteristics  and  the  present  legal  status  of  em- 
ployer and  employee.  It  remains  in  this  connection  to 
inquire  how  the  law  has  worked  in  the  past  with  special 
reference  to  its  effect  upon  labor  and  labor  welfare. 
Here  we  are  obliged  to  turn  to  England,  since  there  we 
find  the  clearest  record  of  the  attempt  to  apply  the  fun- 
damental viewpoint  and  asstunptions  underlying  our  law 
— the  absolutistic  viewpoint  and  the  assumptions  of 
natural  right,  individualism  and  free  individual  contract 
— and  the  clearest  test  of  the  results  of  the  common  law 
as  administered  by  the  courts  on  the  basis  of  precedent. 

This  attempt  was  made  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eight- 
eenth and  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In 
the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  England  in  her 
law  accepted  the  absolutistic  viewpoint  and  the  theory 
of  natural  order  and  natural  rights  as  we  have  attempted 
to  state  them,  and  the  corollaries  tliat  the  state  has  no 
right  to  interfere  with  individual  freedom  and  free  com- 
petition, its  sole  business  being  to  guarantee  these  rights, 
and  that  when  this  is  done,   individual  employers  and 


240  TRADE  UNIONISM 

individual  workmen  will  be  on  a  basis  of  competitive 
equality  and  the  welfare  of  all  will  be  subserved. 

Hence,  the  England  of  this  time  practically  adopted 
the  rule  of  laisses  faire,  laissez  passer,  and  proceeded  to 
sweep  away  the  restrictive  legislation  that  had  hampered 
the  free  activity  and  competition  of  individual  employers 
and  individual  workmen.  Combinations  were  forbidden 
by  law  and  a  fair  field  was  guaranteed  to  all,  subject  to 
the  interpretations  of  the  courts  based  on  the  common 
law.  The  experiment  began  about  the  time  when  the 
industrial  revolution  in  England  was  rapidly  breaking 
up  the  old  handicraft  system  of  industry  and  developing 
in  its  place  the  modern  system  of  machine  industry  and 
factory  production,  and  paralleled  this  development.  The 
results,  it  must  be  admitted,  were  affected  by  the  Na- 
poleonic wars,  and  especially  by  the  sudden  increase  of 
the  workers  at  the  close  of  these  wars.  Nevertheless, 
the  outcome  gives  us  the  best  historical  test  that  we  have 
of  the  practical  working  of  the  dominant  theory  that 
underlies  our  law. 

The  results  were  not  at  all  what  the  theory  presumed 
or  what  the  English  anticipated.  Instead  of  putting  the 
employers  and  the  workers  on  a  plane  of  equality  and 
subserving  the  best  interests  of  all,  the  competitive 
strength  and  interest  of  the  employer  were  found  to  be 
progressively  advanced,  while  the  competitive  strength 
and  welfare  of  the  workers  were  relatively  if  not  abso- 
lutely weakened.  The  result  was  an  era  of  almost  un- 
believable suffering  and  degradation  for  the  latter.  In 
the  midst  of  a  period  of  great  increase  of  wealth  and 
"national  prosperity,"  and  with  the  courts  carefully 
guarding  the  natural  rights  of  all,  as  interpreted  by  the 
common  law,  all  the  modern  labor  conditions  and  prob- 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    241 

lems  from  which  we  suffer  and  of  which  we  complain 
arose  and  flourished  hke  rank  weeds;  unemployment, 
child  labor,  women's  work,  long  hours,  low  wages,  insani- 
tary and  unsafe  conditions  of  work,  industrial  disease, 
accident  and  death,  lack  of  proper  compensation  for  these, 
brutality  in  shop  discipline,  degraded  home  conditions 
and  surroundings,  poverty,  misery  and  vice  among  the 
working  people,  all  these  came  quickly  to  characterize 
the  English  situation.  So  that  hardly  had  the  hisses 
faire  policy  been  launched  before  the  British  were  again 
forced  to  allow  labor  combinations  and  to  attempt  again 
to  build  up  a  body  of  restrictive  legislation  in  protection 
of  the  working  people  from  the  effects  of  free  individual 
competition  under  these  circumstances.  The  evils  of  the 
situation  are  proved  and  illustrated  by  contemporary 
writings  and  by  the  later  work  of  investigators. 

The  question  might  be  asked :  Why  or  how  did  it  come 
about  that  when  social  restraint  was  removed  in  Eng- 
land these  results  followed,  contrary  to  theory?  To  ac- 
count for  the  result,  we  must  take  into  consideration  that 
there  was  a  conjunction  of  removal  of  social  restraint 
with  entirely  new  economic  and  social  conditions  to  which 
old  standards  of  thought  and  action  did  not  apply.  It 
takes  time  to  build  up  a  social  and  moral  code  applying  to 
new  conditions  and  problems.  At  a  time  when  a  new 
code  had  to  be  built  up,  England  destroyed  her  old  and 
left  the  immediate  outcome  to  be  determined  by  the  un- 
guarded struggle  of  man  against  man.  Raw  human  na- 
ture had  its  innings.  The  successive  steps  by  which  this 
was  accomplished  in  manufacture  may  be  summarized 
as  follows: 

I.  The  new  machinery  which  was  the  mechanical 
basis  of  the  industrial  revolution  in  manufacture,  the 


242  TRADE  UNIONISM 

spinning  jenny,  the  water  frame,  the  mule,  the  power 
loom,  the  steam  engine,  was  too  expensive  for  the  small 
independent  worker,  and  thus  he  lost,  very  naturally, 
the  ownership  of  the  mechanical  means  of  production — 
the  tools. 

2.  The  new  machinery  was  too  heavy  to  be  installed 
in  the  house  of  the  workman  and  the  new  power,  steam, 
could  not  be  economically  applied  to  isolated  machines ; 
therefore  the  merchant  gathered  his  machinery  and  his 
workers  increasingly  into  factories  or  mills  of  his  own, 
and  thus  the  worker  lost  the  ownership  and  control  of 
the  workshop.  Thus  deprived  of  his  tools  and  his  work- 
shop, the  worker  ceased  necessarily  to  be  an  independent 
producer;  he  could  no  longer  purchase  raw  materials  and 
contract  to  work  it  up  into  the  finished  product.  Of 
necessity,  therefore,  he  became  a  wage  worker. 

3.  The  new  machinery  altered  the  mode  of  produc- 
tion, splitting  it  up  into  many  small  processes  which  could 
be  performed  with  little  skill  and  training,  and  the  doing 
of  which  led  to  no  knowledge  of  the  trade  as  a  whole. 
Hence  the  worker  lost  his  trade  education,  his  skill  and 
his  control  of  the  trade  and  trade  conditions. 

4.  The  new  machinery  had  to  be  operated  where  power 
was  to  be  had  and  power  could  be  furnished  economi- 
cally only  at  certain  times  and  when  all  the  machines 
were  running;  hence  the  worker  lost  control  of  his  hours 
of  work.  He  had  to  go  to  the  factory  at  a  certain  fixed 
time  determined  by  the  capitalist  machine  owner  and  re- 
main at  work  while  the  power  was  supplied  to  the  ma- 
chinery. 

5.  The  new  power  made  possible  control  by  the  capi- 
talist over  the  location  of  the  factory.  Before  the  ad- 
vent of  the  steam  engine  such  factories  as  there  were 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    243 

had  to  be  scattered  about  wherever  water  power  was  to 
be  secured.  Now  they  could  be  brought  together  at  the 
most  advantageous  points,  considering  sources  of  mate- 
rial, the  labor  supply,  and  the  market.  The  factories 
were  therefore  concentrated  and  as  a  result  there  de- 
veloped great  manufacturing  cities.  The  worker  thus 
became  a  city  dweller,  and  since  he  could  not  afford  the 
ownership  of  city  property,  he  thus  lost  the  ownership  or 
life-lease  of  his  home  and  became  the  tenant  at  will  of  the 
employer  or  landlord. 

6.  The  cutting  up  of  the  manufacturing  process  by 
the  machinery  into  small  and  simple  tasks,  i.e.,  the  minute 
division  of  labor,  made  possible  the  employment  of  weak 
and  unskilled  workers,  and  hence  brought  into  compe- 
tition with  the  old  workmen  not  only  unskilled  men  but 
women  and  children.  These  weak  and  unskilled  work- 
ers therefore  flocked  to  the  new  manufacturing  centers 
or  were  brought  or  sent  there  and  entered  into  competi- 
tion with  the  former  skilled  workmen.  The  results  were 
the  lowering  of  the  wage,  and  the  throwing  out  of  em- 
ployment of  the  strong  and  skilled,  because  the  unskilled 
women  and  children  could  be  forced  to  work  cheaper. 

7.  The  manufacturing  centers  thus  became  fright- 
fully congested.  Old  modes  and  regulations  of  life  be- 
came inoperative.  Housing  and  sanitary  conditions  were 
horrible,  almost  past  belief.  Morality  degenerated  to  the 
lowest  possible  depths.  Poverty,  drunkenness  and  vice 
held  undisputed  sway. 

Thus,  within  a  generation,  was  the  industrial  worker 
of  England,  from  an  independent,  skilled,  tool-owning 
producer  of  goods  for  sale,  or  a  worker  in  process  of 
becoming  such,  a  country  or  small  town  dweller,  com- 
fortably housed,  fed  and  clothed,  living  a  life  governed 


244  TRADE  UNIONISM 

by  definite  customs,  based  on  definite  religious,  ethical 
and  social  concepts,  protected  by  an  intricate  legal  code, 
reduced  to  an  unskilled  wageworker  dependent  upon  a 
master  to  whom  he  was  merely  a  part  in  the  process  of 
production,  ill-paid,  ill-housed,  ill-clothed,  ill-fed,  de- 
prived of  the  ordinary  conditions  and  standards  of  life — 
the  basis  of  a  new  and  distinct  class  in  society.  The  proc- 
ess of  transformation  thus  outlined  applied  in  this  form 
only  to  the  industrial  and  manufacturing  trades,  but  the 
industrial  revolution  in  one  form  or  another  was  general. 
The  transformation  of  mining  industry  went  on  hand  in 
hand  with  manufacture  and  sooner  or  later  production 
generally,  except  in  agriculture,  was  transformed  by  ma- 
chinery into  capitalistic  industry  with  its  distinctly  dif- 
ferentiated wage  working  class  dependent  upon  the  own- 
ers of  the  means  and  materials  of  production. 

We  have  said  that  the  law  is  based  on  the  primary 
assumption  that  there  is  a  fixed  natural  social  order  in 
which  there  exist  certain  immutable  rights  which  per- 
sist under  all  circumstances,  and  that  if  the  state  will  only 
let  things  alone,  simply  guaranteeing  these  individual 
rights  through  the  courts,  proceeding  always  on  the  basis 
of  precedent,  equality  of  opportunity  will  exist  for  all 
individuals  and  the  well-being  of  all  will  prevail  through 
the  general  pursuit  of  self-interest.  The  question  now  is, 
How  did  this  come  to  be  the  theory  of  the  law?  What 
forces  and  conditions  produced  it  ?  Do  these  forces  and 
conditions  exist  now — so  that  we  can  hardly  hope  to 
change  the  law  fundamentally?  Or  have  they  generally 
passed  out,  their  places  being  taken  by  a  new  set  tend- 
ing to  a  new  legal  conception  and  mode  of  procedure, 
more  in  harmony  with  existing  needs,  so  that  we  need 
not  despair  of  the  transformation  of  the  law  into  a  real 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    245 

basis  for  constructive  activity?  We  must  answer  these 
questions  before  we  can  know  what  can  be  done  in  this 
connection.  Doubtless  the  lawyer  has  a  definite  answer 
to  these  questions,  which  is  technically  unassailable,  but 
which,  nevertheless,  differs  greatly  from  that  given  by 
the  student  of  general  social  science.  But  however  this 
may  be,  the  answer  given  by  the  latter  is  somewhat  as 
follows : 

The  fundamental  assumptions  and  framework  of  our 
present  law  are  an  eighteenth  century  product.  They 
developed  partly  as  a  reaction  against  a  previous  restric- 
tive legal  system  which  had  outlived  its  workability  and 
partly  in  response  to  a  nev/  social  philosophy  which 
attained  definite  form  and  acceptance  during  the  eight- 
eenth century.  They  were  pragmatically  true  for  the 
time  of  their  development,  i.e.,  they  harmonized  with  the 
general  thought  of  the  period  and  they  fitted  the  condi- 
tions and  needs  of  the  economic  situation.  Hardly  had 
they  been  established,  however,  when  the  industrial  revo- 
lution created  a  new  economic  situation  which  made  them 
pragmatically  false  in  their  application,  i.e.,  unjust  and 
socially  vicious.  Somewhat  later  a  new  social  philoso- 
phy developed  with  which  they  are  entirely  out  of  har- 
mony. They  persist,  therefore,  mainly  by  force  of  social 
tradition.  The  new  economic  condition  and  the  new 
social  philosophy  are  bound  gradually  to  displace  them 
and  create  a  new  legal  basis  and  framework  adapted  to 
the  new  situation.  To  make  the  matter  clear,  we  need 
to  go  back  and  trace  the  process  somewhat  in  detail. 

In  the  early  modem  era  the  chief  need  of  western 
European  society  appeared  to  be  not  the  greatest  produc- 
tion of  wealth  but  the  establishment  of  stable  political 
authority.     When  the  ecclesiastical  and  feudal  authority 


246  TRADE  UNIONISM 

broke  up,  the  old  industrial  standards  and  modes  of 
social  control  gave  way.  Europe  was  split  up  into  strug- 
gling and  fighting  local  groups ;  social  anarchy  impended. 
The  hope  for  a  new  and  stable  authority  seemed  to  lie  in 
the  establishment  of  national  states,  and  in  subordinating 
everything  else  to  the  development  of  national  power. 
This  was  sought  largely  through  the  regulation  of  indus- 
try. Suffice  it  to  say  that  by  the  beginning  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  there  had  been  built  up  in  each  of  the 
important  countries  In  western  Europe  a  vast,  intricate 
system  of  restrictions  on  industry  and  trade  called  the 
Mercantile  System,  intended  mainly  to  strengthen  the 
nation  as  against  its  neighbors,  and  the  central  govern- 
ing authority  as  against  local  authority.  By  the  most 
minute  and  universal  regulations  each  government  sought 
to  encourage  manufactures,  augment  the  population,  and 
Increase  the  quantity  of  money  In  the  country,  in  order 
to  attain  industrial  efficiency,  and  equip  and  maintain 
larger  armies  and  navies.  When  this  regp-ilatory  code 
was  complete  there  was  practically  no  free  industrial 
enterprise  or  activity.  The  quantity  of  goods,  the  qual- 
ity, the  conditions  and  methods  of  production,  the  wages 
paid,  the  prices  charged,  were  regulated  by  law.  What 
could  be  produced,  in  some  cases  even  what  could  be 
worn  and  eaten,  was  specified.  Special  privileges  were 
conferred,  special  restrictions  were  imposed,  and  prohibi- 
tions enforced  In  a  general  effort  to  secure  national 
power  and  what  was  deemed  essential  to  it — the  well- 
being  of  each  Individual  and  the  prosperity  of  each  es- 
sential Industry  in  the  state. 

In  short,  under  the  Mercantile  System,  almost  nothing 
industrially  was  left  to  individual  initiative,  or  to  the 
outcome  of  natural  economic  forces.     Industry  and  the 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR  247^ 

individual  were  wards  of  the  state.  Until  the  new  na- 
tional authorities  had  been  firmly  established  in  Europe 
this  system  appeared  on  the  whole  to  work  well  and  was 
generally  supported,  but  by  the  beginning  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  a  great  tide  of  reaction  had  risen  against 
it.  This  reaction  was  the  result  partly  of  the  positive 
economic  evils  which  the  system  produced,  partly  of  the 
chafing  against  the  old  and  unfit  restrictions  of  a  new 
economic  life  which  was  developing,  and  partly  of  the 
advance  of  science.  Out  of  all  these  things,  as  the 
spiritual  background  of  the  reaction  against  mercantilism 
and  the  guide  to  new  action,  arose  a  new  social  and 
economic  philosophy.  This  new  philosophy  was  based 
on  the  concepts  of  natural  order  and  natural  law.  Science 
was  demonstrating  that  the  physical  universe  constituted 
an  orderly  and  harmonious  whole,  expressive  of  the  ac- 
tion of  universal  and  immutable  law.  It  dawned  upon 
social  and  economic  thinkers  that  this  might  be  true  also 
of  society.  The  analogy  was  eagerly  adopted  and  worked 
out.  The  resulting  social  philosophy  was  in  briefest  out- 
line as  follows :  there  is  a  fixed  ideal  natural  social  type 
or  order  of  society  governed  by  a  code  of  natural  law 
existing  in  human  nature  and  antecedent  to  all  human 
institutions.  Left  free  to  pursue  his  own  interest,  the 
individual  as  a  rational  being  will  obey  this  code.  Obedi- 
ence to  this  natural  code  results  in  entire  harmony  of 
interest  and  relations  in  society  and  in  the  highest  social 
welfare  of  all.  The  evils  of  existing  society  are  due  to 
the  interference  with  natural  law  and  the  perversion  of 
the  natural  order  by  governmental  restrictions.  The 
remedy  for  these  evils  is  the  restoration  of  the  natural 
order  by  the  removal  of  restrictions,  leaving  the  indi- 
vidual to  follow  his  own  interest  in  his  own  way.     As 


24S  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Adam  Smith  said  in  a  famous  passage  in  the  "Wealth  of 
Nations,"  book  IV,  chapter  II,  "He  [the  individual] 
generally  neither  intends  to  promote  the  public  interest, 
nor  knows  how  much  he  is  promoting  it.  .  .  .  He  in- 
tends only  his  own  security;  and  by  directing  that  in- 
dustry in  such  a  manner  that  its  produce  may  be  of  the 
greatest  value,  he  intends  only  his  own  gain,  and  he  is 
in  this  as  in  many  other  cases  led  by  an  invisible  hand 
to  promote  an  end  which  was  no  part  of  his  intention." 

The  slogans  of  this  new  philosophy  were  natural 
rights,  economic  freedom,  free  competition,  laisscz  faire 
and  laissez  passer.  A  curious  and  significant  feature 
about  this  new  thought,  especially  as  it  developed  in  Eng- 
land, was  that  its  followers  considered  the  fundamental 
institutions  in  their  own  country  to  be  a  part  of  the 
natural  order.  Thus  the  freedom  that  was  demanded 
never  contemplated  the  abolition  of  private  property  nor 
the  violation  of  property  rights.  It  was  assumed  that 
political  equality  and  the  abolition  of  restraints  in  free 
contract  and  free  trade  meant  economic  equality  and 
complete  economic  freedom.  All  through  the  eighteenth 
century  this  philosophy  gained  ground  and,  as  applied  to 
economic  affairs,  largely  through  the  interpretation  of 
Adam  Smith's  "Wealth  of  Nations,"  it  gained  complete 
ascendancy  toward  the  close  of  the  century. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  philosophy  the  old  legal 
regulations  intended  to  protect  the  worker  against  op- 
pressive working  conditions  and  thus  to  secure  for  him 
work  and  a  decent  standard  of  living  were  swept  aside. 
Combinations  of  the  workers  themselves  in  the  interest 
of  higher  wages  and  better  conditions  were  legally  con- 
demned as  conspiracies  in  restraint  of  trade.  Freedom 
of  individual  contract  was  made  the  keystone  of  public 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    249 

policy.  The  right  of  the  individual  employer  to  hire 
and  discharge  the  individual  worker  at  will,  to  pay  the 
lowest  wage  that  would  secure  workers,  obliged  to  bar- 
gain individually  and  in  competition  with  one  another, 
to  work  them  as  long  hours  as  he  could  force  upon  them 
as  individual  bargainers,  to  work  them  under  as  insani- 
tary and  dangerous  conditions  as  he  could  impose,  and 
the  right  of  the  individual  laborer  to  work  where,  when, 
for  whom,  for  what  wages  and  hours  and  under  what 
conditions  he  pleased,  regardless  of  the  effect  upon  him- 
self and  his  fellow  workers — these  rights  were  made  in 
England  the  foundation  of  the  working-class  legal  status. 
While  the  industrial  revolution  was  thus  creating  con- 
ditions capable  of  bringing  all  these  evils  upon  the  work- 
ing class,  the  eighteenth  century  philosophy  of  laissez 
fairc  removed  from  the  new  industrial  authority,  the 
modern  employer,  the  sense  and  duty  of  responsibility 
which  rested  on  the  old  privileged  orders. 

The  eighteenth  century  philosophy  of  Europe  was 
taken  over  by  America  and  crystallized  in  written  con- 
stitutions. The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is 
based  definitely  on  the  notions  of  natural  order  and 
natural  rights.  The  natural  rights  which  it  especially 
guarantees  are  the  right  to  property  and  the  equal  pro- 
tection of  the  laws.  The  notion  that  government  should 
keep  hands  ofif  industrial  affairs  and  relations,  and  that 
free  contract  is  the  touchstone  of  social  and  individual 
well-being,  was  adopted  without  question  by  the  Ameri- 
can courts.  These  rights  of  the  individual  employer  and 
worker,  intrenched  by  constitutional  private  property 
guarantees,  thus  became  in  America  the  basis  of  indus- 
trial law. 

Now  this  social  philosophy  and  its  crystallization  in 


250  TRADE  UNIONISM 

law  were  undoubtedly  right  and  good  relative  to  the  con- 
ditions existing  during  the  time  of  its  development.  It 
was  a  period  of  handicraft  industry  where  capitalistic 
enterprise  was  slight,  where  the  relations  between  mas- 
ter and  man  were,  in  general,  close  and  sympathetic — 
master  and  apprentice  were  almost  like  the  members  of 
a  family — where  the  dissatisfied  workman  could  easily 
acquire  the  means  of  successful  enterprise  and  set  up  for 
himself.  Under  such  circumstances  free  competition 
did,  to  a  very  great  extent,  put  employer  and  worker  on 
an  equal  competitive  basis,  and  free  enterprise  did  mean 
in  general  the  serving  of  the  public  good.  But  hardly 
had  the  laissez  faire  philosophy  been  established  in  prac- 
tice when  a  new  set  of  conditions  arose  which  destroyed 
the  equality  of  individual  employer  and  worker  and  made 
it  entirely  unfit  to  meet  the  new  conditions  and  needs. 
This  was  the  industrial  revolution  whoSe  effect  on  the 
relation  of  employers  and  workers  we  have  already  con- 
sidered. And  further,  there  soon  arose  a  new  social 
philosophy  quite  out  of  harmony  with  that  which  had 
given  birth  to  the  laissea  faire  theory  and  practice — the 
evolutionary  concept  of  society. 

The  law  then  became  out  of  harmony  both  with  social 
theory  and  social  needs  and  conditions.  But  such  is  the 
force  of  social  habit  and  tradition  that  it  is  only  now, 
after  a  century  and  more,  that  the  fact  is  coming  to  be 
clearly  apprehended.  But  just  as  the  earlier  restrictive 
system  passed  out  as  the  result  of  the  development  of 
the  natural  rights  philosophy  and  the  rise  of  the  indus- 
trial buyer  class  and  free  labor,  so  the  laisses  faire  policy 
based  on  these  things  is  bound  to  pass  out  as  the  result 
of  the  development  of  the  evolutionary  doctrine  and  mod- 
em capitalism,  which  contradicts  the  old  assumptions. 


THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    251 

The  only  question  is,  shall  it  pass  quickly  and  give  place 
to  something  based  on  knowledge  and  wise  prevision,  or 
shall  we  drift,  the  blind  sport  of  circumstance,  and  per- 
haps get  results  from  unintelligent  democratic  control 
that  will  be  infinitely  worse  than  what  we  now  have? 

I  should  like  to  ask  regarding  this  characterization, 
therefore :  is  it  true  as  far  as  it  goes,  is  there  not  another 
side  to  the  matter  which  should  be  stated?  As  things 
now  are,  should  we  be  any  better  off  if  the  law  repre- 
sented the  evolutionary,  progressive  or  democratic  con- 
cept of  society?  How  would  the  law  proceed  on  the 
basis  of  that  principle?  What  must  we  have  before  the 
law  can  safely  be  based  and  proceed  on  that  principle? 
Undoubtedly  there  is  danger  of  leaving  the  law  com- 
pletely in  the  hands  of  the  democracy  with  the  lack  of 
any  definite  standards  of  justice  or  methods  of  procedure 
of  an  evolutionary  character  that  might  be  substituted 
for  those  at  present  in  use.  What  we  need  is  machinery 
for  securing  reliable  information  in  the  field  of  labor 
problems,  for  creating  standards,  maxima  and  minima, 
rules  of  the  game  in  this  field  that  will  reflect  present 
conditions  and  will  grow  and  change  with  developing 
conditions  and  relationships,  and  for  educating  an  in- 
telligent public  in  relation  to  these  matters.  All  this 
seems  necessary  before  we  can  hope  for  anything  better 
from  an  evolutionary  transformation  and  enlarged  demo- 
cratic control  of  the  law.  More  especially  we  need:  (i) 
To  take  out  of  the  control  of  the  common  law,  out  of  the 
field  of  contentious  litigation,  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
court  and  out  of  the  realm  of  court  procedure  much  that 
concerns  labor  disputes  and  the  administration  of  the 
law,  where  flexibility  and  judgment  on  a  basis  of  exist- 
ing conditions  are  especially  needed  and  the  present  tech- 


252  TRADE  UNIONISM 

nical  legal  procedure  is  slow,  inelastic,  and  obstructive  ;^* 
(2)  to  adopt  a  method  of  securing  up-to-date  informa- 
tion; (3)  to  develop  standards  and  rules  of  the  game, 
jtist  for  the  present,  and  flexible  enough  to  meet  chang- 
ing conditions;  and  (4)  to  educate  an  intelligent  public 
in  regard  to  these  matters,  i.e.,  progressively  to  do  away 
with  the  dangers  of  democracy. 

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Commons  and  Andrews.     Principles  of  Labor  Legislon 

Hon  (1916). 
Cooke,    F.   H.      The  Law   of  Combinatio{ns,   Monopolies 

and  Labor   Unions,  2d  ed.    (1909). 
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THE  LAW  IN  RELATION  TO  LABOR    253 

Cunningham,  William.  Grozcih  of  English  Industry 
and  Commerce  in  Modern  Times,  vol.  3,  Laissc:j-Fairc 

(1903). 

Downey,  E.  H.  History  of  Work  Accident  Indemnity  in 
Iowa  (1912),  chaps.  II,  III,  IV. 

Engels,  P'rederick.  The  Condition  of  the  Working- 
Class  in  England  in  1844   (1892). 

Gaskell,  p.     The  Manufacturing  Population  of  England 

(1833). 

GiBBiNS,  Henry  de  Beltgens.  Industry  in  England 
(1906),   chaps.    XX-XXV. 

Hamilton,  W.  H.  Current  Economic  Problems,  "The 
Industrial  Revolution,"  pp.  36-70. 

Kydd,  Samuel  (Alfred,  pseud.)  The  History  of  the 
Factory  Movement    (1857). 

Report  of  the  Minutes  of  Evidence  taken  before  the 
Select  Committee  on  the  State  of  the  Children  em- 
ployed in  Manufactories  of  the  United  Kingdom,  House 
of  Commons   (1816). 

Report  of  Select  Committee  on  Factory  Children's  La- 
bor (known  as  ''Sadler's  Committee"),  House  of  Com- 
mons (1831). 

First  Report  of  Commissioners  on  the  Employment  of 
Children  in  Factories,  House  of  Commons    (1834). 

Reports  from  the  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords 
on  the  Sweating  System    (1888). 

Toynbee,  Arnold.  The  Industrial  Revolution  (1890), 
chaps.  VI,  VII,  VIII,  IX. 


CHAPTER  X 

COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  AND  THE  TRADE 
UNION  PROGRAM 

By  interpretation  of  the  trade  union  program*  is  meant 
the  explanation  of  the  union  aims,  principles  and  theo- 
ries in  terms  of  the  conditions  which  the  workers  have  to 
face,  the  problems  they  have  to  solve,  and  the  funda- 
mental assumptions  which  they  hold  as  a  consequence. 
It  is  also  the  explanation  of  union  policies,  demands, 
methods  and  attitudes  in  terms  of  these  aims,  principles, 
theories  and  assumptions,  and  an  attempted  rough  evalu- 
ation of  the  items  of  the  union  program  in  terms  of 
social  welfare.^  In  "Industrial  Democracy"  ^  we  have 
found  the  only  worth  while  systematic  attempt  at  the 
general  interpretation  of  unionism.  To  this  store  of  fun- 
damentals I  propose  to  add  a  little  through  a  brief  con- 
sideration of  collective  bargaining  and  a  statement  of 
two  or  three  significant  bits  of  union  reasoning  which 

^  See  Appendix  II,  p.  391. 

-  In  proceeding  to  an  interpretation  of  the  trade  union  pro- 
gram the  plan  is  to  take  up  and  show  the  character  and  deriva- 
tion of  the  few  fundamental  economic  policies,  principles  and 
theories  of  unionism  that  have  not  already  been  incidentally 
explained,  and  then  to  go  through  the  specific  items  of  the  pro- 
gram and  see  how  far  they  can  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  these. 
This  at  once  shows  how  far  trade  unionism  as  such  is  econom- 
ically and  socially  valid. 

*  Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb,  Industrial  Democracy. 

254 


COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  255 

have  not  been  brought  out  in  our  study.  At  this  point 
a  word  of  caution  against  two  things  is  needed;  first, 
against  expecting  entire  consistency  between  the  differ- 
ent strands  of  union  theory.  Union  theory  is  not  a  well 
knit  and  consistent  whole — any  more  than  is  union  ac- 
tion. As  has  been  said  many  times,  unionism  is,  above 
all,  pragmatic  and  opportunistic;  when  a  certain  line  of 
action  seems  to  be  demanded  by  the  circumstances,  union- 
ists are  inclined  to  seize  upon  the  interpretation  which 
seems  to  justify  it,  regardless  of  whether  it  is  consistent 
with  other  general  statements  of  their  position.  Sec- 
ondly, the  tendency  which  generally  comes  with  the  first 
part  of  the  study  to  revert  to  a  narrow  economic  con- 
ception of  unionism  as  a  device  merely  for  raising  wages 
and  shortening  hours  must  be  avoided.  It  should  be  kept 
in  mind  always  that  unionism  is  much  more  than  this, 
and  that  whatever  the  study  seems  to  show  as  to  its  in- 
ability to  raise  wages  and  shorten  hours  generally,  and 
its  narrow  group  and  antisocial  character,  it  has  vast  in- 
fluence outside  this  narrow  field  where  its  group  interests 
and  effects  do  not  necessarily  come  into  conflict  with 
social  interests  generally.  This  outside  field  includes  the 
education  of  its  members,  the  reform  of  the  law,  pro- 
tecting men  and  especially  women  workers  from  all  sorts 
of  indignities  and  arbitrary  oppression  from  their  su- 
periors, establishing  systematic  constitutional  govern- 
ment in  industry  in  place  of  anarchic,  or  arbitrary  ab- 
solutistic  power,  and  thus  creating  among  its  own  mem- 
bers a  spirit  of  dignity  and  hopefulness  and  stimulating 
a  spirit  of  striving  among  those  outside  its  ranks.  With 
these  explanatory  statements  and  cautions  let  us  turn  to 
the  theory  of  collective  bargaining. 

There  are  four  main  strands  to  the  theory  of  collec- 


256  TRADE  UNIONISM 

tive  bargaining.  The  first  is  a  theory  of  standardization. 
Wages  and  the  conditions  of  employment  are  determined 
by  the  relative  bargaining  strength  of  the  workers  and 
employers  of  the  industrial  group.  Under  competitive 
conditions  the  bargaining  strength  of  the  employer  is 
greater  than  that  of  the  individual  worker  because  ( i ) 
of  the  superior  knowledge,  bargaining  skill  and  waiting 
power  of  the  employer;  (2)  of  the  lesser  thing  at  stake 
with  the  employer,  profits  as  against  life;  (3)  there  is 
always  an  actual  or  potential  oversupply  of  labor;  (4) 
the  weakest  employers  industrially  and  financially  are  the 
strongest  labor  bargainers;  (5)  the  competitive  strength 
of  the  labor  group  under  individual  bargaining  Is  equal 
only  (ultimately)  or  tends  to  be  equal  only  to  the  com- 
petitive strength  of  its  weakest  member,  as  is  illustrated 
by  the  case  of  ten  places  and  eleven  men;  and  (6)  the 
full  bargaining  strength  of  the  employer  is  bound  to  be 
exercised  against  the  workers  under  competitive  con- 
ditions because  of  the  pressure  of  the  consuming  public 
for  cheap  goods  transmitted  through  retailer  and  whole- 
saler; and  because  the  most  unscrupulous  employer  sets 
the  pace,  and  under  capitalistic  monopoly  conditions  im- 
personality produces  the  same  results.  Therefore,  in- 
dividual or  competitive  bargaining  on  the  part  of  the 
workers  means  progressive  deterioration  of  wages  and 
conditions  of  employment.  The  tendency  is  for  wages 
and  conditions  to  sink  to  the  level  which  could  be  secured 
through  the  competitive  strength  of  the  weakest  worker 
of  the  group.  The  only  way  to  prevent  this  deterioration 
is  to  rule  out  all  competition  between  the  individual 
workers  of  the  group,  both  in  the  making  of  the  bargain 
with  the  employer,  and  in  the  subsequent  interpretation 
of  it  and  work  under  it. 


COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  257^ 

This  can  be  done  only  by  the  establishment  and 
maintenance  of  two  principles :  the  principle  of  uniform- 
ity in  regard  to  all  the  conditions  of  work  and  pay  where 
competition  direct  or  indirect  can  take  place  between  in- 
dividual workers,  and  the  principle  of  standardization, 
or  restrictive  regulation,  by  the  group,  of  all  changes  in 
conditions  of  work  and  pay  during  the  term  of  the  wage 
contract.  These  principles  can  be  established  and  main- 
tained only  through  collective  bargaining,  and  this  is 
its  principal  function. 

The  second  strand  of  the  theory  underlying  collective 
bargaining  is  also  a  theory  of  standardization  but  of  a 
slightly  different  nature,  for  it  relates  to  definite,  clearly 
cognizable  standards  of  work  and  pay.  It  may  be  stated 
thus:  The  employer  is  constantly  endeavoring  to  rein- 
troduce individual  bargaining  and  to  force  down  the  wage 
rate  and  Increase  the  exertion  and  output  for  a  given 
wage  by  indirect  and  specific  encroachments  on  the  exist- 
ing status,  for  instance,  by  slight  changes  in  method  and 
process,  by  creating  conditions  which  require  slightly 
greater  exertion  or  irregular  home  work  and  overtime; 
by  division  of  processes  and  redistribution  of  work,  by 
changes  in  tools,  by  changes  In  mode  of  payment,  and 
by  arbitrary  fines  and  exactions.  These  changes  for  the 
most  part  have  the  effect  of  increasing  work  or  reducing 
pay.  In  the  absence  of  clearly  defined  standards  they  are 
easy  to  introduce  and  are  often  Introduced  so  as  to 
result  in  reductions  without  knowledge  of  this  effect  by 
the  workers,  and  the  individual  worker  alone  is  usually 
too  weak,  even  if  he  does  recognize  their  effect,  to  re- 
sist them.  It  is  a  method  of  forcing  workers  co  com- 
pete against  one  another  without  their  knowledge  or  con- 
sent.    These  encroachments  mean,  therefore,  undercut- 


258  TRADE  UNIONISM 

ting  and  a  progressive  reduction  of  wage  rates  and  con- 
ditions of  employment. 

The  only  way  to  prevent  this  is  to  have  all  the  incidents 
of  work  and  pay  most  minutely  and  clearly  specified  and 
this  specification  rigorously  maintained.  This  can  be 
done  only  through  collective  bargaining.  Many  minute 
and  harassing  specifications  are  laid  down,  especially  in 
regard  to  kinds  of  work  that  may  be  done  by  each 
worker,  modes  of  doing  the  work,  times  and  modes  of 
payment,  deductions  and  exactions,  times  of  be'ginning 
and  ending  of  work,  machinery,  materials,  objectionable 
work,  etc.  Such  restrictive  regulations  are  reasonable 
if  the  employer  is  constantly  trying  to  make  encroach- 
ments. This  he  is  doing,  say  the  workers,  for  the  em- 
ployer's motive  is  profit,  and  these  encroachments  are  in 
great  part  the  little  improvements  in  method  and  savings 
that,  under  fierce  competition,  mean  the  difference  be- 
tween reasonable  profits  or  very  low  or  no  profits.  He 
is  forced  to  make  them  though  he  is  naturally  humane, 
but  under  competition  the  least  humane  rules,  and,  even 
under  monopoly  conditions,  these  are  among  the  vaunted 
gains,  or  the  savings,  of  competition. 

The  third  strand  of  the  theory  of  collective  bargain- 
ing concerns  its  benefits  to  employers.  Among  the  ad- 
vantages to  the  employer  arising  out  of  unionism  and 
the  union  shop,  as  claimed  by  the  unionists,  are  these : 
(i)  The  unions  claim  to  supply  the  employer  with  a  suf- 
ficient amount  0*  high-grade  labor,  intelligent,  self-re- 
specting, well  trained  and  restrained.  (2)  The  unions 
claim  to  exercise  a  disciplinary  control  over  this  labor,  to 
see  that  the  individuals  give  to  the  employer  a  fair  day's 
work  for  a  fair  day's  wage,  to  see  that  the  workers  as 
individuals  or  as  a  shop  group  do  not  violate  their  agree- 


COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  259 

ments  with  the  employer,  and  to  replace  workers  who 
cannot  be  depended  upon  in  this  way  by  those  who  can. 
(3)  The  unions  claim  to  relieve  the  employer  from  the 
danger  of  sudden  and  ill-considered  strikes  to  which  the 
employer  is  apt  to  be  subjected  from  unorganized  and 
undisciplined  workers.  (4)  The  unions  claim  that  they 
protect  the  employer  from  waste  of  materials,  misuse  of 
tools  and  machinery,  sabotage,  and  other  individualistic 
and  revolutionary  methods  of  unorganized  workers.  (5) 
The  unions  claim  that  agreement  with  them  insures 
the  employer  the  stability  of  industrial  outlook  which  is 
essential  to  successful  conduct  of  business.  They  do  this 
by  entering  into  an  agreement  with  the  individual  em- 
ployer which  guarantees  that  he  shall  have  for  a  certain 
period  an  adequate  labor  supply,  turning  out  a  definite 
output,  at  a  definite  labor  cost,  and,  where  these  agree- 
ments are  made  by  the  union  with  the  employers  cover- 
ing the  whole  industry  or  the  market  area,  that  the  em- 
ployer is  protected  for  the  term  of  the  agreement  from 
the  cutthroat  competition  of  his  rivals.  (6)  The  unions 
claim  that  their  membership  is  capable  of  turning  out 
a  superior  quality  of  product  and  that  this  lessens  the 
necessary  amount  of  expense  of  inspection;  that  their 
members  effect  savings  of  tools,  materials  and  machin- 
ery, and  prevent  loss  by  minimizing  the  product  that 
must  be  scrapped  or  reworked  because  of  failure  to  come 
up  to  standard  requirements,  and  that  the  union  men  re- 
quire less  supervision  and  instruction.  (7)  The  unions 
claim  that  their  members  are  capable  of  performing  many 
auxiliary  operations  which  unskilled  or  specialist  work- 
men cannot,  as,  for  example,  the  adjusting  of  the  ma- 
chinery, the  making  of  minor  repairs,  the  laying  out  and 
setting  up  of  work,  the  overcoming  of  special  difficulties, 


26o  TRADE  UNIONISM 

etc.,  thus  effecting  further  savings  for  the  employer.  (8) 
The  unions  claim  that  they  put  all  the  employers  in  the 
trade  within  the  competing  area  on  an  equal  competitive 
footing,  that  is,  they  rule  out  the  special  exigencies  of 
the  particular  employers  and  they  protect  fair  and  hon- 
orable employers  from  the  cutthroat  competition  of  un- 
fair employers ;  they  even  up  the  natural  conditions,  such 
as  those  of  different  mines  and  districts,  which  are  given 
differentials  in  regard  to  wages,  etc.,  that  tend  to  put  all 
into  the  market  on  a  fairly  equal  footing. 

The  fourth  strand  concerns  the  double-sided  monopoly 
possibilities  and  benefits  of  collective  bargaining.  Given 
a  strong  employers'  association  and  a  strong  group  of 
unions  working  together  as,  for  instance,  ordinarily  in 
the  building  trades,  collective  bargaining  may  be  a  most 
effective  means  of  creating  monopoly  conditions  in  the 
trade  and  reaping  benefits  in  higher  prices  and  profits  on 
the  one  hand  and  higher  wages  on  the  other.  Employ- 
ers agree  to  the  closed  shop  and  the  unions  to  harass 
rival  employers. 

Back  of  these  strands  that  constitute  the  theory  of 
collective  bargaining  are  certain  more  basic  theories  that 
serve  in  part  to  interpret  them.  The  first  may  be  desig- 
nated the  standard  of  living  theory  and  the  second  the 
group  demand  theory. 

The  standard  of  living  theory  runs  as  follows:  Wages 
and  conditions  of  employment  are  determined  by  the 
relative  bargaining  strength  of  the  workers  and  em- 
ployers of  the  industrial  group.  The  bargaining  strength 
of  the  workers  is  in  direct  proportion  to  the  standard  of 
living  of  the  group  and  of  the  class.  In  bargaining  for 
wages  and  conditions  of  employment  the  prevailing 
standard  of  living  of  the  group  tends  to  be  taken  as  the 


COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  261 

standard  of  justice;  therefore,  a  high  standard  in  the 
group  and  class  tends  to  strengthen  the  workers  in  their 
attempts  to  secure  and  maintain  high  wages  and  good 
conditions ;  hence  high  wages  tend  to  breed  high  wages, 
and  vice  versa.  In  bargaining,  the  workers  on  a  high 
standard  of  Hving  are  more  capable  of  waiting,  therefore 
their  bargaining  power  is  stronger;  hence  no  wage  re- 
ductions. 

The  standard  of  living  of  the  group  tends  to  be  taken 
as  the  standard  of  justice  in  determining  the  wage  rate. 
Therefore  anything  that  indicates  that  the  existing  wage 
rate  will  yield  more  than  the  customary  standard  of  liv- 
ing tends  to  decrease  the  bargaining  strength  of  the  work- 
ers and  the  wage  rate  and  vice  versa.  Therefore  the  in- 
dividual who  works  faster  and  turns  out  more  product 
than  the  normal  tends  to  lower  the  wage  rate ;  hence  the 
necessity  of  limitations  on  the  day,  rate  of  work,  piece 
system,  bonus  system,  etc. 

We  have  seen  that  a  large  part  of  the  trade  union 
program  is  wholly  or  partially  explained  by  the  theory 
of  uniformity  or  standardization.  Another  large  part, 
especially  limitation  of  output  and  limitation  of  num- 
bers, is  explained  partly  by  what  is  called  the  fixed 
group  demand  theory.  There  is  much  scorn  of  unionists 
by  economists  and  employers  because  of  this  lump  of 
labor  theory  with  its  corollaries.  This  scorn  is  based  on 
the  classical  supply  and  demand  theory  and  its  variants. 
Supply  is  demand.  Increased  efficiency  in  production 
means  an  increase  of  social  dividend  and  increased  shares, 
which  in  turn  increase  production  and  saving.  There- 
fore, the  workers  cut  off  their  own  noses  when  they 
limit  output  or  limit  numbers.  The  classical  position  is 
undoubtedly  valid  when  applied  to  society  as  a  whole,  if 


262  TRADE  UNIONISM 

there  is  any  such  thing,  and  in  the  long  run.  But  the 
trouble  is  that,  so  far  as  the  workers  are  concerned, 
there  is  no  society  as  a  whole,  and  no  long  run,  but  im- 
mediate need  and  rival  social  groups. 

The  fixed  group  demand  theory  is  as  follows :  The 
demand  for  the  labor  of  the  group  is  determined  by  the 
demand  for  the  commodity  output  of  the  group.  The 
community — wealth  and  distribution  remaining  the 
same — has  a  fairly  fixed  money  demand  for  the  com- 
modities of  a  group.  It  will  devote  about  a  given  pro- 
portion of  its  purchasing  power  to  these  commodities, 
that  is,  if  the  prices  of  the  group  commodity  are  higher, 
it  will  buy  less  units  and  vice  versa,  but  expend  about  the 
same  purchasing  power.  Therefore,  the  demand  for  the 
labor  of  the  group,  profits  remaining  the  same,  is  prac- 
tically fixed,  and  increasing  the  group  commodity  out- 
put means  simply  conferring  a  benefit  on  the  members 
of  other  groups  as  consumers  without  gain  to  the  group 
itself.  Therefore,  to  increase  the  efiiciency  and  the 
output  of  the  group  will  not  increase  the  group  labor  de- 
mand and  group  wages.  Decreasing  the  efficiency  and 
output  of  the  group  will  not  decrease  the  group  labor 
demand  and  the  group  wage. 

Increasing  the  number  of  workers  tends  to  decrease 
their  bargaining  strength  relatively  and  to  lower  the 
total  wage  and  the  wage  rate.  Increasing  the  efficiency 
and  the  output  of  the  workers  is  equivalent  to  increas- 
ing the  group  labor  supply,  and  so  tends  to  lower  the 
group  wage  and  the  wage  rate.  Decreasing  the  number 
of  workers  tends  to  increase  their  bargaining  strength 
relatively  and  so  to  increase  the  group  wage  and  the  wage 
rate.  Decreasing  the  efficiency  and  output  of  the  work- 
ers tends  to  increase  their  bargaining  strength  relatively 


COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  263 

and  so  to  increase  the  group  wage  and  the  wage  rate. 
The  introduction  of  labor  saving  devices  is  equivalent  to 
increasing  the  labor  supply  and  so  lowering  the  wage 
rate.  Limitation  of  output  through  shorter  hours,  etc., 
i.e.,  decreasing  the  supply  of  labor,  increases  bargaining 
strength  and  tends  to  increase  the  wage.  Strikes  and 
trade  union  insurance  funds  are  means  of  temporarily 
withdrawing  labor  supply  and  so  of  increasing  bargain- 
ing strength  and  increasing  wages.  In  practice  the  group 
demand  theory  is  simply  the  application  by  the  unions 
of  the  principle  of  monopoly,  admittedly  vahd.  But 
this  theory  only  in  part  explains  union  efforts  to  limit 
both  individual  and  group  efficiency  and  output  and  to 
limit  numbers.  These  policies  in  part  rest  on  other 
theories  and  considerations.* 

Collective  bargaining  is  a  mode  of  fixing  the  terms  of 
employment  by  means  of  bargaining  between  an  organ- 
ized body  of  employees  and  an  employer,  or  association 
of  employers,  usually  acting  through  duly  authorized 
agents.  But  does  collective  bargaining  have  the  effect 
of  increasing  or  decreasing  real  bargaining  in  the  deter- 
mination of  the  terms  of  employment?  The  essential 
thing  is  that  collective  bargaining  really  puts  the  work- 
ers on  a  footing  of  equality  with  employers  in  regard  to 

*  Cf.  "The  Trade  Union  Program,"  Appendix,  p.  391,  and  note 
what  policies  and  demands  are  intended  to  limit,  or  have  the 
effect  of  limiting,  output  and  so  are  to  be  at  least  partially  ex- 
plained by  the  group  demand  theory.  A  portion  of  the  argument 
for  restriction  on  output  centers  about  the  question — a  central 
point  in  the  opposition  of  the  union  against  the  employer — 
whether  cheapness  or  men  are  more  important,  that  is,  to  what 
extent  it  is  justifiable  to  make  society  sacrifice  greatest  possible 
production  in  order  that  the  worker  may  have  a  decent  life. 


264  TRADE  UNIONISM 

terms  of  employment.  It  is  a  method  of  securing  that 
equality  which  is  presumed,  under  the  free  contract  as- 
sumption of  our  law,  to  give  to  each  party  what  he  is 
entitled  to  and  what  is  to  the  best  interests  of  all.  The 
essence  of  collective  bargaining  is  a  bargain  between  in- 
terested parties  and  not  a  decree  from  outside  parties. 
But  arbitration  is  often  provided  for  in  collective  bar- 
gaining under  certain  contingencies  and  for  certain  pur- 
poses, especially  when  the  parties  cannot  reach  agree- 
ment, and  in  the  interpretation  of  an  agreement. 

Conciliation  is  a  term  often  applied  to  the  act  of  col- 
lective bargaining,  a  term  also  often  applied  to  the  action 
of  public  boards  which  attempt  to  induce  collective  bar- 
gaining. 

Mediation  is  intervention,  usually  uninvited,  of  some 
outside  person  or  body  with  a  view  of  getting  concilia- 
tion or  to  force  a  settlement.  Compulsory  arbitration  is 
extreme  mediation.  All  these  things  are  aids  or  supple- 
ments to  collective  bargaining  where  it  breaks  down. 
They  represent  the  intervention  of  outside  parties. 

The  trade  agreement  is  an  explicit  statement  of  the 
terms  of  the  collective  bargain;  it  makes  a  formal  com- 
pact.     The  essential  parts  of  a  trade  agreement  are : 

( 1 )  A  preamble,  defining  the  parties  to  the  agreement, 
its  scope  or  field,  its  duration,  and  its  general  purpose. 

(2)  A  legislative  code,  giving  the  working  rules,  etc. 
The  points  covered  by  the  legislative  part  of  the  agree- 
ment range  from  wages  and  hours  to  the  most  minute 
regulation  of  all  the  technical  conditions  or  incidents  of 
work  and  pay.  (3)  A  judicial  code  defining  the  mode  of 
interpretation.  (4)  An  executive  part,  providing  a 
mode  of  enforcement.  Not  all  trade  agreements  have 
all  these  distinct  and  essential  parts.     They  range  from 


COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  26$ 

the  rudimentary  ones,  including  the  preamble  and  legisla- 
tive code,  to  those  which  are  most  formal  and  elaborate, 
containing  all  parts. 

Types  of  agreement  according  to  scope: 

1.  Local:  shop,  craft  and  industry. 

2.  Intermediate  or  district :  craft,  allied  craft. 

3.  System  and  industry. 

4.  National:  craft  and  industry. 
Parties  to  the  agreement : 

1.  Local:  (a)  single  employer  and  shop;  (b)  local  em- 
ployers or  employers'  association  and  local  craft  union. 

2.  Intermediate:  (a)  local  employers'  association  and 
local  council  of  allied  crafts;  (b)  system  officers,  allied 
crafts  of  system;  (c)  system  officers  and  craft  organization 
of  system;  (d)  employers  of  district  and  district  union 
organization. 

3.  National:  (a)  national  employers'  association  and  the 
national  union,  craft  or  industrial. 

The  scope  is  determined  by: 

1.  The  degree  of  uniformity  of  conditions. 

2.  The  extent  and  character  of  the  organization  on  both 
sides. 

3.  The  area  of  competition. 

Theoretically  or  ideally,  corresponding  to  the  three 
essential  parts  of  the  trade  agreement,  the  legislative,  the 
judicial  and  the  executive,  there  are  three  distinct  steps 
in  the  process  of  collective  bargaining :  ( i )  the  creation 
of  a  trade  agreement,  (2)  the  interpretation  of  the  agree- 
ment, and  (3)  the  enforcement  of  the  agreement.  Each 
of  these  steps  has  its  peculiar  character  and  aim,  and 
therefore  each  requires  a  special  kind  of  intellectual  and 
moral  activity  and  machinery. 

The  creation  of  the  agreement  is  a  process  of  finding 


266  TRADE  UNIONISM 

and  making  specific  applications,  in  the  trade,  of  com- 
mon standards  of  judgment  as  to  right,  rights  and  feasi- 
bility, or  of  compromising  differences  of  opinion,  interest 
and  point  of  view  on  the  part  of  the  opposing  parties 
concerned.  It  is,  in  essence,  a  legislative  process.  Its 
machinery  should  provide  above  all  things  for  a  con- 
tact of  the  parties  most  concerned,  for  the  purpose  of 
deliberation  and  discussion.  To  succeed  in  this  process, 
there  is  required  on  both  sides  general  and  specific  trade 
knowledge  and  the  ordinary  qualities  of  successful  bar- 
gaining. In  general,  effective  bargaining  requires  that 
the  bargaining  body  should  be  small ;  that  the  negotiators 
should  have  full  power,  and  that  the  personnel  should  be 
made  up  of  veterans  who  possess  (a)  bargaining  ability 
(shrewdness,  know^ledge  of  men,  judgment,  self-control, 
nerve,  persistence,  tact,  unscrupulousness,  etc.),  (b) 
technical  knowledge  (more  especially  where  piece  rates 
are  paid),  ability  to  estimate  effects  of  changes,  new 
processes,  machinery,  etc.,  and  (c)  information  as  to  the 
state  of  the  trade. 

The  interpretation  of  the  agreement,  its  application 
to  actual  cases  which  arise,  the  determination  of  the  par- 
ticular class  to  which  a  piece  of  work  belongs  and  the 
rates  and  conditions  which  apply — such  as  a  change  in 
patterns,  a  variation  in  seams  of  coal,  the  introduction 
of  new  machinery — are,  on  the  other  hand,  in  general, 
matters  of  the  application  of  law  to  fact.  There  are 
three  classes  of  cases:  (i)  construction  (interpretation) 
of  rules;  (2)  questions  of  fact  to  which  rules  are  to  be 
applied;  and  (3)  cases  not  provided  for  in  the  agree- 
ment.® 

"  For  illustrations,  see  decisions  of  the  Joint  Board  of  Miners 
and  Operators ;  rulings  on  railway  agreements   (printed  along 


COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  267 

This  is  a  judicial  process  and  as  the  facts  to  be  deter- 
mined and  the  rules  applied  are  apt  to  be,  as  we  have  seen, 
very  technical  and  complex,  success  in  interpretation  of 
an  agreement  requires  chiefly  expert  technical  knowl- 
edge. As  the  process  is  merely  one  of  the  application  of 
fixed  rules,  the  machinery  need  not,  and,  according  to 
some  authorities,  should  not  provide  for  contact  between 
interested  parties  and  deliberation.  It  should  be  simple 
and  its  operation  free  from  possible  partisanship  and 
bias,  the  work  of  a  small  body  of  experts.  The  ideal  is 
some  form  of  machinery  that  will  be  automatic,  rapid, 
inexpensive,  exact  and  matter-of-fact. 

Finally,  the  enforcement  of  the  agreement  is  a  mere 
matter  of  authority,  an  executive  process,  and  requires 
a  series  of  executive  or  police  working  tools  backed  up 
by  effective  force. 

In  practice,  especially  in  the  United  States  as  com- 
pared with  England,  these  three  essential  parts  of  an 
agreement  are  not  always  or  perhaps  ordinarily  dis- 
tinctly recognized.  Many  of  the  agreements  in  fact  con- 
sist merely  of  a  statement  of  the  agreement  and  a  few 
specific  working  rules.  Others,  indeed,  contain  a  multi- 
tude of  working  rules  and  provisions,  and  elaborate  state- 
ments covering  the  settlement  of  disputes  and  the  en- 
forcement of  the  agreement,  but  the  distinct  character  of 
the  legislative  and  judicial  functions  is  not  very  clearly 
appreciated.  Consequently,  distinct  machinery  is  not  al- 
ways provided  for  the  performance  of  these  functions, 
and  the  machinery  which  is  provided,  especially  for  the 

with  such  agreements) ;  decisions  of  national  arbitration  boards 
of  the  International  Typographical  Union  and  the  Newspaper 
Publishers'  Association;  decisions  of  Standing  Committee  of  the 
Potters'  Association  and  the  Brotherhood  of  Operative  Potters. 


268  TRADE  UNIONISM 

judicial  function,  is  not  generally  appropriate.  Like 
everything  else  connected  with  American  unionism  the 
methods  and  machinery  of  collective  bargaining  are  in  a 
state  of  flux.  They  are  being  built  up  by  the  trial 
method.  There  is  immense  variation,  and  to  a  large 
extent  they  are  in  a  rudimentary  or  crude  state. 

Let  us  examine  a  little  more  specifically  the  machinery 
and  methods  in  the  creation  of  agreements.  Here  we 
find,  in  the  simplest  situation  in  the  case,  that  of  a  shop 
agreement,  what  might  be  called  a  town  meeting  type. 
The  employer  or  foreman  meets  his  workers  and  negotia- 
tions are  direct,  but  this  direct  form  of  legislation  is 
impossible  as  soon  as  the  agreement  broadens  out  be- 
yond the  single  shop.  Then  representative  government, 
at  least  on  the  side  of  the  workers,  becomes  necessary 
because  the  workers  cannot  stop  work  in  order  to  nego- 
tiate ;  the  body  becomes  unwieldy ;  agreement  among  the 
workers  becomes  extremely  difficult;  and  requisite  skill 
for  bargaining  is  not  possessed  by  many  workers,  espe- 
cially by  men  confined  in  work  to  single  processes  and 
uneducated,  nor  by  employers  specialized  in  large  cor- 
porations. The  negotiations  then  fall  into  the  hands  of 
representatives,  officers,  committees,  delegates,  or  boards 
who  may  be  given  full  power  to  negotiate  and  to  deter- 
mine, or  who,  more  often,  must  report  results  back  to 
the  body  of  workers  for  consideration  and  a  referendum 
vote. 

On  the  side  of  the  union,  ordinary  types  of  negotiating 
bodies  are: 

( I )  A  temporary  or  special  committee  as  in  the  buildings 
trades  unions,  street  railway  employees,  etc.  The  tempo- 
rary committee  is  regularly  composed  of  salaried  (profes- 
sional) union  officers. 


COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  269 

(2)  A  standing  or  permanent  committee — as  in  the  case 
of  the  railway  unions,  printing  trades,  and  operative 
potters. 

(3)  A  convention  of  delegates,  as  with  the  United  Mine 
Workers  of  America,  the  Longshoremen,  and  the  Amal- 
gamated Iron,  Steel  and  Tin  Workers.  (The  convention 
of  the  last  merely  adopts  a  scale  which  is  submitted  to  the 
several  mills.) 

On  the  side  of  the  employer  the  negotiations  are  carried 
on  by: 

(i)  His  manager,  etc.,  in  effecting  a  shop  agreement. 

(2)  Officers  of  the  employing  corporation,  as  in  the  case 
of  a  steam  railway,  street  railway.  Amalgamated  Copper  or 
the  American  Locomotive  Company. 

(3)  Committees  of  employers'  associations,  i.e.,  salaried 
officers  or  important  members,  as  with  the  Stove  Founders' 
National  Defense  Association,  Newspaper  Publishers'  Asso- 
ciation, the  United  States  Potters'  Association,  Lake  Car- 
riers' Association,  Chicago  Warehouse  Men's  Association, 
etc. 

(4)  A  convention  of  employers   (coal  mine  operators). 

The  existing  agreement  or  working  conditions,  in  the 
absence  of  agreement,  is  the  basis  of  negotiations.  The 
new  agreement  is  reached  by  modifying  the  old.  De- 
mands on  each  side  are  formulated  before  actual  nego- 
tiations begin,  in  meetings  or  conventions  of  employers 
and  employees  separately.  The  negotiators  on  each  side 
are  not  absolutely  bound  by  instructions  but  are  left  free 
to  get  as  much  as  possible ;  and  negotiation  proceeds  by 
a  series  of  demands  and  offers,  usually  ending  in  a  com- 
promise. 

It  is  plain,  from  what  precedes,  that  a  responsible  union 
and,  where  more  than  one  employer  is  a  party  to  the 
bargaining,  a  responsible  employers'  organization  or  as- 


270  JRADE  UNIONISM 

sociation,  authorized  to  act  for  the  individuals  concerned 
and  capable  of  enforcing  the  bargaining  contract  in  all 
its  incidents,  are  main  conditions  for  successful  collective 
bargaining.  The  necessity  for  this  is  evident,  for  neither 
side  can  afford  to  bargain  where  it  cannot  depend  upon 
the  enforcement  of  the  contract;  hence  the  necessity  for 
the  union  to  be  strongly  officered,  and  the  impossibility 
of  successful  collective  bargaining  where  membership  is 
too  radical  and  too  socialistic  to  respect  contracts.  In- 
deed, enforcement  of  contract  might  be  put  down  as  the 
indispensable  condition  for  collective  bargaining.  Where 
it  fails,  collective  bargaining  must  fail. 

Recognition  of  the  union  by  the  employers  is  obvi- 
ously another  essential  condition  of  collective  bargain- 
ing. There  is  no  other  medium  through  which  the  work- 
ers can  be  dealt  with  collectively.  Before  collective  bar- 
gaining can  begin  the  union  must  be  actually  or  tacitly 
recognized.  When  the  unions  strike  for  recognition  as 
they  frequently  do,  recognition  is  not  then,  as  usually 
supposed,  an  arbitrary  demand  but  it  is  demanded  in 
the  interest  of  collective  bargaining,  and  when  the  em- 
ployer refuses  to  recognize  the  union  he  does  so  usually 
because  he  refuses  to  recognize  collective  bargaining  as 
a  mode  of  settling  wage  rates  and  working  conditions, 
i.e.,  he  refuses  to  admit  that  he  has  not  a  right  to  manage 
his  business  to  suit  himself,  an  admission  which  is  in- 
volved in  collective  bargaining.  Hence  the  frequent 
struggles  over  the  demand  for  recognition. 

As  has  been  said,  what  is  needed  for  the  interpretation 
of  agreements  is  machinery  that  will  work  automatically 
and  rapidly,  and  be  inexpensive,  exact,  and  matter-of- 
fact,  and  these  needs  are  best  met  by  a  small  body  of 
experts  without  interest  in  the  outcome,  and  therefore 


COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  271 

without  bias.  In  practice,  in  the  United  States,  this  has 
not  been  generally  followed.  The  idea  seems  to  have 
prevailed  that  the  interpretation  of  agreements  in  the 
settlement  of  disputes  is  a  matter  of  negotiation  between 
interested  parties,  experts  with  presumably  unbiased  judg- 
ment being  brought  in  only  as  a  last  resort.  The  ma- 
chinery generally  provided  is  a  series  of  tribunals  with 
appeals  from  one  to  another.  The  machinery  differs 
with  the  union. 

Important  illustrations  are: 

1.  In  coal  mining:  (a)  the  primary  tribunal  to  which  is 
referred  for  adjustment  a  dispute  between  an  individual 
workman  and  a  mine  foreman  (or  subordinate  boss)  is 
the  pit  committee  and  the  mine  foreman.  On  their  failure 
to  agree,  the  dispute  is  taken  to  (b)  the  local  officers  and 
superintendent  of  the  mine  (or  to  the  mine  owner).  Upon 
their  failure  to  agree,  the  dispute,  if  a  question  of  discharge, 
is  referred  either  to  (c)  an  arbitrator  whose  decision  is 
final,  or,  if  any  other  dispute,  to  the  president  of  the  dis- 
trict of  the  United  Mine  Workers  of  America  and  the  Com- 
missioner of  the  operators.  Upon  their  failure  to  agree, 
the  appeal  lies  with  (d)  the  Joint  Board,  consisting  of  the 
executive  board  of  the  district  of  the  United  Mine  Workers 
of  America  and  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Operators' 
Association.     Their  decision  is  final. 

2.  In  the  building  trades:  (a)  an  individual  dispute  is 
taken  up  by  the  steward  or  business  agent  with  the  fore- 
man; (b)  an  appeal  then  may  be  made  to  the  business 
agent  and  to  the  contractor;  (c)  when  still  unsettled,  appeal 
is  next  made  to  the  joint  board  of  the  union  and  the  contrac- 
tors' association;  and  (d)  upon  their  failure  to  agree  an 
umpire  may  be  called  in  and  the  majority  vote  of  the  board 
with  the  umpire  is  final. 

3.  On  railway  lines:  (a)  an  individual  or  general  divi- 


272  TRADE  UNIONISM 

sion  dispute  is  first  considered  by  the  division  committee 
and  appropriate  division  officer  of  the  railway,  v^^ho  may 
be  division  superintendent,  passenger  agent,  mechanical 
superintendent,  master  mechanic,  superintendent  of  motor 
power,  etc.;  (b)  upon  failure  of  the  division  committee  the 
dispute  is  taken  up  by  the  joint  protective  board  or  the 
general  committee  of  the  system  (a  chairman  and  from 
four  to  six  members,  the  chairman  of  each  division),  ap- 
pointed by  the  men,  and  appropriate  officers  of  the  railway 
system,  such  as  general  superintendent  or  general  manager, 
and  by  that  committee  carried  from  successive  officials  of 
the  railway  hierarchy  to  the  highest  appropriate  official  for 
final  adjustment, 

4.  In  the  printing  trades  the  successive  tribunals  are: 
(a)  chairman  of  the  chapel  and  the  foreman;  (b)  local 
joint  board  of  the  union  and  the  employers'  association ; 
(c)  local  allied  printing  trades  council  and  officers  of  pub- 
lishers' association,  and  (d)  national  joint  arbitration  board. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  any  generally  accepted  definite  or 
adequate  machinery  has  been  developed  in  the  United 
States  for  the  enforcement  of  agreements.  In  some 
cases  there  is  joint  control.  Joint  boards^  or  standing 
committees  are  often  empowered  to  fine,  suspend,  or 
expel  individual  employees,  local  unions  or  employers. 
But  in  the  majority  of  cases,  probably,  enforcement  de- 
pends merely  on  the  inclination  or  authority  possessed 
by  each  party  to  the  agreement  to  discipline  its  own  sub- 

*  Such  boards  are  the  Joint  Board  of  Miners  and  Operators, 
the  National  Arbitration  Board  of  Newspaper  Publishers  and 
the  International  Typographical  Union,  the  Standing  Committee 
of  the  Potters'  Association  and  Operative  Potters,  and  the  Joint 
Arbitration  Board  of  Carpenters'  and  Builders'  Association  and 
the  District  Council  of  Carpenters  (Chicago). 


COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  273 

ordinate  bodies  or  individual  members,  or,  in  case  of  the 
employers,  the  legal  power  to  discharge  employees. 

In  general,  this  enforcement  consists,  on  the  side  of 
the  workers,  in  the  power  of  the  unions  to  discipline  their 
members.  The  local  officers  have  such  authority;  the 
international  officers  have  authority  to  discipline  indi- 
vidual members  or  locals ;  and  district  officers  often  have 
intermediate  authority  over  locals  and  individual  mem- 
bers. On  the  part  of  the  employer,  enforcement  lies  in 
his  power  to  discharge  individual  employees  or  to  dis- 
cipline subordinate  officers,  foremen,  superintendents, 
division  officers,  etc.,  and  in  the  authority  which  em- 
ployers' associations  have  to  discipline  employers. 

Machinery  for  the  enforcement  of  agreements  on  the 
part  of  the  union  is  found  in  the  steward,  or  the  com- 
mittee or  other  representative  at  the  working  place ;  and 
in  inspection  by  the  business  agent  or  other  executive 
officer.  On  the  part  of  the  employers  the  power  rests 
with  the  foreman,  superintendent  or  other  representative 
at  the  working  place;  or  through  inspection  by  the  ex- 
ecutive officer  of  the  association. 

Penalties  for  violations  are  not  usually  provided  for 
in  the  agreement  or  if  so  are  not  enforceable  at  law.  For 
individual  employees  discipline  may  consist  in  discharge 
or  lay-off  by  the  employer,  fine  by  the  union,  employer, 
or  joint  board,  suspension  from  the  union,  or  expulsion 
from  the  union.  Local  unions  may  suffer  a  fine  by  the 
district,  or  national,  suspension  or  forfeiture  of  charter. 
The  employer  may  be  punished  by  a  fine  imposed  by  the 
union,  or  by  the  employers'  association,  or  he  may  be 
suspended  or  expelled  from  the  association.'^ 

^  The  essence  of  the  protocol  consists  of  machinery  for  the 
settlement  of  difficulties  as  they  arise,  and  so  for  building  up  a 


274  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Inviolability  of  contracts  is  preached  and  largely 
practiced  by  the  Railway  Brotherhoods,  the  United  Mine 
Workers  of  America,  the  United  Textile  Workers  of 
America,  the  Boot  and  Shoe  Workers'  Union,  the  Na- 
tional Brotherhood  of  Operative  Potters,  the  Glass  Bottle 
Blowers'  Association,  and  the  International  Seamen's 
Union  of  America,  etc.  Cases  are  not  infrequent  among 
business  unions  where  the  keeping  of  contracts  is  en- 
forced on  a  local.^ 

Agreement  on  general  principles  of  right  and  justice  is 
not  the  sticking  point.  Collective  bargaining  is  rather  a 
compromise.  But  we  know  that  there  are  no  standards 
which  both  sides  recognize,  and  therefore  the  compromise 
is  an  unstable  affair.  Neither  side  is  really  satisfied.  It 
is  an  inconclusive  peace.  Accordingly,  the  obligation  of 
the  contract  tends  to  be  taken  lightly  by  both  sides. 
This  is  one  of  the  great  weaknesses  of  collective  bar- 
gaining, even  as  a  settlement  of  group  difficulties. 

Collective  bargaining  and  arbitration,  however,  are 
steps  toward  full  labor  control.     They  are  an  entering 

body  of  law  for  the  shop.  To  make  it  work  there  is  needed  a 
new  attitude  on  the  part  of  the  employer  and  a  new  type  of 
union  leader.  The  general  type  of  the  trade  union  leadership 
for  it  does  not  exist.  Trade  unionism,  as  we  have  seen  it,  would 
have  to  be  greatly  changed  to  make  the  protocol  work.  There 
is  nothing  about  it  that  touches  or  tends  to  solve  the  intergroup 
problem — the  broad  social  problem  that  we  have  visualized. 

*  Mr.  Keefe  of  the  Longshoremen,  when  a  local  union  asked 
higher  pay  than  the  scale  agreed  upon,  telegraphed  the  ship- 
master to  pay  what  was  demanded.  He  then  fined  the  local  and 
suspended  it  until  the  fine  was  paid,  and  from  the  union  funds 
repaid  the  excess  to  the  shipmaster.  The  Locomotive  Engineers 
have  frequently  expelled  members  for  violating  agreements.  In 
fact,  all  the  railway  brotherhoods  will  furnish  men  in  place  of 
members  who  strike  in  violation  of  agreement. 


COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  275 

wedge  toward  industrial  democracy  and  abolition  of  the 
profits  system.  Recognition  of  the  union  is  the  first 
step,  since  individual  bargaining  gives  the  workers  no 
voice.  This,  then,  is  the  important  thing — not  the  lack 
of  a  principle  of  justice.  Collective  bargaining  is  not 
an  instrument  of  peace  primarily.  It  is  a  step  in  the 
process  of  control.  Indeed,  the  significant  thing  about 
unionism  is  the  development  of  a  process  of  control. 
This  is  the  larger  aspect  of  unionism  and  in  this  sense 
collective  bargaining  is  a  solution  of  the  labor  problem. 

Bibliography 
Trade  'Agreements: 

Printing  Trades,  Building  Trades,  Coal  Miners,  Railroad 
Brotherhoods,  etc. 

Texts  of  Agreements: 
Bulletins  of  the   U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  44:132-135; 
47:903-909;  48:1045-1063;  49:1312-1340;  50:132-147; 
51:415-435;    52:638-650;    53:933-936;    55:1623-1635; 
56:244-257. 

Bulletin  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  98  (1912)  : 

"Attitude  of  Employing  Interests  Toward  Conciliation 
and  Arbitration  in  Great  Britain,"  by  A.  Maurice  Low, 
pp.   161-178. 

"Attitude  of  Labor  Toward  Conciliation  and  Arbitration 
in  Great  Britain,"  by  A.  E.  Holder,  pp.  179-202. 

"The  Canadian  Industrial  Disputes  Investigation  Act  of 
1907,"  pp.  64-81. 

"Conciliation  and  Arbitration  in  Great  Britain,"  pp.  123- 
160. 

"Conciliation  and  Arbitration  of  Railway  Labor  Dis- 
putes in  Great  Britain,"  pp.  82-122. 

"Conciliation,  Arbitration  and  Sanitation  in  the  Cloak, 


276  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Suit  and  Skirt  Industry  in  New  York  City,"  by  C.  H. 
Winslow,  pp.  203-272. 
"Mediation  and  Arbitration  of  Railway  Labor  Disputes 
in  the  United  States,"  by  C.  P.  Neill,  pp.  1-63. 

Bulletin  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  vol.  XII,  No.  62 
(1906). 

"Conciliation  in  the  Stove  Industry,"  by  J.  P.  Frey  and 
J.  R.  Commons. 

Bulletin  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  vol.  LX,  No.  51 
(1904). 

"The  Union  Movement  Among  Coal  Miners,"  by  F.  J. 
Warne. 

Bulletin  of  the  U.  S.  Department  of  Labor,  No.  42  (1902)  : 
Report  to  the  President  of  the  Anthracite  Strike  Com- 
mission on  the  Coal  Strike  of  1902. 

Ashley,  W.  J.     The  Adjustment  of  Wages  (1903). 

Barnett,  G.  E.  "National  and  District  Systems  of  Col- 
lective Bargaining  in  the  United  States,"  Quarterly  Jour- 
nal of  Economics,  26:425-443  (1912). 

Commons,  John  R.  Trade  Unionism  and  Labor  Problems 
(1905),  chap.  I,  "Trade  Agreements." 

Commons  and  Andrews.  Principles  of  Labor  Legislation 
(1916),  chap.  III. 

Donnelly,  S.  B.  "The  Trade  Agreement  in  the  Building 
Trades,"  Annals  of  the  American  Academy,  27:510-516 
(1906). 

Oilman,  N.  P.  Methods  of  Industrial  Peace  (1904),  chap. 
IV,  "Collective  Bargaining." 

Hollander  and  Barnett.  Studies  in  American  Trade 
Unio\nism,  chap.  VI.  "Collective  Bargaining  in  the  Typo- 
graphical Union,"  by  G.  E.  Barnett;  chap.  VIII,  "Trade- 
Union  Agreements  in  the  Iron  Molders'  Union,"  by  F. 
W.  Hilbert. 

Mitchell,  John.    Organized  Labor,  chap.  I,  "The  Philos- 


COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING  277 

ophy  of  Trade  Unionism";  chap.  XXXIX,  "The  Strike 
versus  the  Trade  Agreement." 
Price,  L.  L.     Industrial  Peace:  Its  Advantages,  Methods 

and  Difficulties  ( 1887). 
Report  of  the  United  States  Industrial  Commission  (1901)  : 
Vol.   VIII,   pp.   Ixii-lxv,    "Agreements   Between   Unions 

and  Contractors  and  Violations  of  Them." 
Vol.  XVII,  pt.  I,  chap.  2,  "Collective  Bargaining,  Con- 
ciliation and  Arbitration." 
Vol.  XVII,  pt.  Ill,  chap.  I,  "National  and  General  Trade 

Systems  in  the  United  States." 
Vol.  XVII,  pt.  Ill,  chap.  2,  "Local  Collective  Bargaining." 
Vol.  XIX,  pp.  833-862,  "Collective  Bargaining,  Concilia- 
tion and  Arbitration." 
Stewart,  E.     "Trade  Agreements,"  Annals  of  the  Amer. 

Acad.,  36:340-348  (1910). 
SuFFERN,  Arthur  E.     Conciliation  and  Arbitration  in  the 

Coal  Industry  of  America  (1915). 
Taylor,  B.     "The  Labor  Treaty  in  the  British  Shipbuild- 
ing   Industry,"    The   Engineers'    Magazine,    41 :238-245 
(1911). 
Warne,  F.  J.     "The  Trade  Agreement  in  the  Coal  Indus- 
try," Antnals  of  the  Amer.  Acad.,  36:340-348  (1910). 
Webb,     Sidney    and     Beatrice.     Industrial    Democracy 
(1902). 
Pt.  II.  chap.  2,  "The  Method  of  Collective  Bargaining." 
Pt.  II,  chap.  5,  "The  Standard  Rate." 
Pt.  II,  chap.  6,  "The  Normal  Day." 
Pt.  Ill,  chap.  2,  "The  Higgling  of  the  ^larket." 
Pt.  Ill,  chap.  3,  §    (b),   "The  Device   of  the   Common 
Rule." 

The  Protocol 

Annual  Report  of  the  Joint  Board  of  Sanitary  Control  in 
the  Cloak,  Suit  and  Skirt  Industry  of  Greater  New  York. 
Bulletin. 


278  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Bulletin  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  145  (1914)  : 
"Conciliation,  Arbitration   and   Sanitation   in   the  Dress 
and  Waist  Industry  of  New  York,"  by  Chas.  H.  Wins- 
low. 

Cohen,  J.  H.    Law  and  Order  in  Industry  (1916). 

Experience  of  Hart,  Schaffner  and  Marx  with  Collective 
Bargaining. 

Howard,  E.  D.  "The  Development  of  Government  in  In- 
dustry," Illinois  Lazv  Review,  March,  1916. 

Marcosson,  I.   F.     "A   Truce  in  the  Trades,"  Munsey's 

Mag.,  49:517  (1913). 

Protocol  of  Peace  in  the  Dress  and  Waist  Industry  (1913). 

Report  of  Board  of  Arbitration :  Cloak  and  Suit  Mfrs.' 
Assn.,  Northwest  Cloak  and  Suit  Mfrs.'  Assn.,  and 
Ladies'  International  Garment  Workers'  Union. 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE   ECONOMIC    PROGRAM    OF    TRADE   UNIONISM 

The  union  viewpoint  and  program  is  not  solely  eco- 
nomic. It  is  perhaps  primarily  so.  But  some  of  the 
union  aims,  principles  and  theories,  and  many  of  the 
union  policies,  demands,  methods  and  attitudes  are  legal, 
political,  ethical  and  broadly  social.  For  this  reason  a 
study  of  the  trade  union  program  is  difficult.  The  unions 
give  no  systematic  statement  of  their  aims,  principles, 
policies,  demands  and  methods.  Not  only  do  they  not 
relate  these  things  systematically — they  do  not  even  state 
them  truly  and  clearly.  The  unionists  do  not  usually  in- 
dependently understand  the  theory  of  their  own  demands 
or  of  their  constructive  program.  They  feel.  But  as 
always  in  working  class  movements  the  rationale  of  the 
demands  and  the  movement  has  had  to  be  worked  out 
for  them  by  middle  class  minds, ^  To  a  large  extent 
aims,  principles  and  policies  must  be  inferred  from  de- 
mands and  methods.  What  one  must  do  is  to  study  con- 
stitutions, working  rules,  rules  for  discipline,  and  above 
all  agreements  with  employers  which  lay  down  the  rules 
minutely  covering  incidents  of  work  and  pay,  in  order 
to  discover  demands  and  methods,  and  then  with  the 
help  of  declarations  In  constitutions  and  literature  to  try 

*  See,  in  confirmation,  Webb,  History  of  Trade  Unionism,  p. 
229. 

279 


28o  TRADE  UNIONISM 

to  build  up  policies,  principles  and  aims — putting  the 
whole  thing  finally  into  systematic  shape. 

The  trade  union  program,  or  rather  the  trade  union 
programs,  for  each  trade  union  has  a  program  of  its 
own,  is  not  the  handful  of  unrelated  economic  demands 
and  methods  which  it  is  usually  conceived  to  be,  but  is 
a  closely  integrated  social  philosophy  and  plan  of  action. 
In  the  case  of  most  union  types,  the  program  centers, 
indeed,  about  economic  demands  and  methods,  but  it 
rests  on  the  broad  foundation  of  conceptions  of  right, 
of  rights,  and  of  general  theory  peculiar  to  the  workers, 
and  it  fans  out  to  include  or  reflect  all  the  economic, 
ethical,  juridical  and  social  hopes  and  fears,  aims,  aspira- 
tions and  attitudes  of  the  group.  It  expresses  the  work- 
ers' social  theory  and  the  rules  of  the  game  to  which  they 
are  committed,  not  only  in  industry  but  in  social  affairs 
generally.  It  is  the  organized  workers'  conceptual 
world. 

The  union  program  may  be  classified  conveniently 
under  six  heads :  ( i )  There  are  what  may  be  called 
general  or  ultimate  aims.  (2)  There  are  the  union  prin- 
ciples and  theories.  These  principles  and  theories  seem 
to  be  the  natural  and  probably  inevitable  outcome  of 
the  peculiar  conditions  under  which  the  laborers  live  and 
work,  and  the  peculiar  problems  which  they  have  to  face 
and  sclve.  They  cannot  be  judged  as  right  or  wrong 
individually,  or  before  the  most  careful  study  has  been 
made  of  the  conditions  and  circumstances  which  give 
rise  to  them.  And  they  must  be  judged  relatively  to  these 
conditions  and  circumstances.  (3)  There  are  the  gen- 
eral policies.  Here  we  have  the  general  means  by  which 
the  unionists,  imbued  with  the  principles  and  theories 
jnentioned  above,  seek  to  control  the  concrete  situation 


THE  ECONOMIC  PROGRAM  281 

in  the  interest  of  their  ultimate  aims.  (4)  There  are  the 
demands.  These  represent  the  specific  means  by  which 
the  unionists  try  to  put  into  effect  their  general  poHcies. 

(5)  There  are  the  methods.  These  represent  the  specific 
modes   which  are   employed   to   enforce   the   demands. 

(6)  Finally,  there  are  the  attitudes.  These  concern 
mainly  the  broader  economic  and  social  ideas  and  ideals 
of  the  organized  workers. 

The  program  of  each  union  type  is  an  organic  whole 
within  which  the  specific  items  are  closely  related  and 
mutually  dependent.  To  understand  fully  the  signifi- 
cance and  causes  of  any  one,  the  program  must  be  com- 
prehended as  a  whole.  For  example,  suppose  that  it  is 
a  certain  method  which  is  in  question.  This  is  put  in 
force  in  direct  obedience  to  certain  general  union  atti- 
tudes, and  to  enforce  demands.  One  cannot  understand 
the  why  of  it,  cannot  interpret  it  fairly,  until  one  under- 
stands the  attitudes  and  demands  which  bring  about  its 
use.  But  the  demands  which  lie  back  of  the  methods  are 
made,  not  merely  for  their  own  sake,  but  to  enforce  cer- 
tain general  policies,  and,  therefore,  to  understand  the 
why  of  the  demands  one  must  grasp  the  general  policies 
which  lie  back  of  them.  But  we  cannot  stop  there.  Back 
of  the  general  policies  are  the  theories  and  principles, 
without  a  knowledge  of  which  we  are  almost  sure  to  go 
astray  in  any  attempt  to  judge  their  significance.  And, 
finally,  the  theories  and  principles  have  no  sure  signifi- 
cance apart  from  the  general  aims  which  they  are  in- 
tended to  subserve. 

No  attempt  will  be  made  here  to  formulate  separately 
the  programs  of  the  different  types  of  unionism.  Only  a 
general  compilation  of  the  aims,  principles  and  theories, 
general    policies,    demands,    methods    and    attitudes   of 


282  TRADE  UNIONISM 

unions  of  all  types  is  submitted.^  It,  therefore,  contains 
many  contradictory  items  and  it  reflects  the  diverse  and 
contradictory  character  of  the  different  union  types.  It 
exhibits  the  scope  and  character  of  union  strivings  and 
furnishes  a  basis  for  discussion.  As  the  types  have  to  a 
large  extent  different  and  sometimes  contradictory  aims, 
principles,  theories,  policies,  demands,  methods  and  atti- 
tudes, the  program  as  a  whole  is  incapable  of  clear-cut 
interpretation  and  causal  explanation.  What  wt  need 
now  is  to  try  to  separate  this  general  mixed  program  into 
separate  type  programs,  and  attempt  to  get  an  interpre- 
tation and  causal  explanation  of  each  one.  What  we 
need  is  a  study  of  each  type  separately  to  try  to  find  out 
what  it  stands  for  and  the  peculiar  problems,  conditions 
and  forces  that  have  determined  its  program.  We  need, 
for  example,  a  special  study  of  guerilla  unionism  as  it 
developed  in  the  case  of  the  Bridge  and  Structural  Iron 
Workers;  of  hold-up  unionism  as  developed  in  the 
Chicago  building  trades,  etc.  This  will  be  a  starting 
point  for  further  study  of  these  groups,  and  a  guide  to 
the  study  of  other  groups  and  to  social  action  which  we 
may  be  called  upon  to  take. 

But  while  the  trade  union  program  as  a  whole  and 
as  differentiated  for  each  type  of  unionism  is  mixed  and 
incomplete,  the  economic  program  has  for  all  unions  a 
single,  definite,  outstanding  viewpoint.  The  economic 
viewpoint  of  unionism  is  primarily  a  group  viewpoint, 
and  its  program  a  group  program.  The  aim  of  the 
union  is  primarily  to  benefit  the  group  of  workers  con- 
cerned, rather  than  the  workers  as  a  whole  or  society 
as  a  whole;  its  theories  which  attempt  to  explain  the 

*  See  Appendix  II,  Student's  Report  on  Trade  Union  Pro- 
gram, 


THE  ECONOMIC  PROGRAM  283 

determination  of  wages,  hours,  conditions  of  employ- 
ment, etc.,  are  not  general  but  primarily  group  theories 
They  are  attempts  to  explain  how  the  wages,  hours  and 
conditions  of  employment  are  determined  for  a  group 
of  workers.  The  principles  of  action  which  it  lays  down 
are  primarily  group  principles  and  its  economic  policies, 
demands  and  methods  are  primarily  intended  to  protect 
and  benefit  the  group  of  workers  concerned. 

It  is  necessary  to  emphasize  all  this  because  most  of 
the  fallacies  which  the  economists  claim  to  find  in  union 
theories,  principles,  policies,  demands  and  methods  result 
from  the  attempt  to  interpret  these  as  applying  to  society 
as  a  whole,  whereas  they  are  intended  to  apply  only  to  a 
particular  group  of  workers.  Much  of  the  misunder- 
standing and  controversy  between  scientific  management 
and  unionism,  for  example,  results  from  the  fact  that 
scientific  management  argues  in  terms  of  the  welfare  of 
the  individual  worker  or  of  society  as  a  whole,  while 
the  unions  argue  primarily  in  terms  of  group  welfare. 
The  economists  declare  rightly  that  unions  by  their  meth- 
ods cannot  raise  wages — meaning  v/ages  as  a  whole — 
and  assume  wrongly  that  this  indicates  a  fallacy  in  the 
union  theories  and  methods.  The  scientific  managers 
declare  rightly  that  limitation  of  output  must  lower 
wages — meaning  wages  as  a  whole — and  assume 
wrongly  that  this  also  indicates  a  fallacy  in  the  union 
policies  and  methods.  They  make  both  statements  be- 
cause they  do  not  understand  that  the  unions  are  not 
primarily  concerned  with  wages  as  a  whole,  but  with 
the  wages  and  standards  of  living  of  particular  groups. 
To  understand  and  to  judge  the  union  aims,  theories 
and  program,  then,  we  must  always  bear  in  mind  that, 
so  far  as  they  are  economic,  they  are  not  general  in 


2^4  TRADE  UNIONISM 

their  scope  but  are  applied  primarily  to  the  situation  and 
welfare  of  the  particular  group  of  workers. 

The  principal  economic  aims  of  the  union  are  to  pre- 
vent the  lowering  and,  if  possible,  to  raise  the  wages  of 
all  the  members  of  the  group;  to  shorten  the  hours  of 
work  of  the  group ;  to  increase  the  security  and  conti- 
nuity of  employment  of  the  members  of  the  groups  and, 
if  possible,  to  secure  steady  and  assured  work  for  all 
in  it;  to  prevent  the  deterioration  and,  if  possible,  to 
better  the  general  conditions  of  employment  of  all  the 
members  of  the  group — especially  to  better  the  condi- 
tions of  safety  and  sanitation  in  the  shop  and  to  prevent 
arbitrary  discipline,  demotion  and  discharge  of  workers, 
and  arbitrary  fining  and  docking  of  wages. 

The  fundamental  assumptions  and  theories  upon 
which  the  unionists  base  their  principles  and  program  of 
action  in  support  of  these  aims,  we  have  already  con- 
sidered.    In  brief,  they  are  these: 

I.  The  interests  of  the  employers  and  workers  of  the 
group  are  generally  opposed;  the  employer  is  seeking 
the  greatest  possible  output  at  the  least  possible  cost; 
he  is,  therefore,  constantly  seeking  to  lower  the  wage 
rate,  to  lengthen  the  hours  of  work,  to  speed  up  the 
workers,  to  lower  the  wages  by  fining  and  docking,  to 
weed  out  the  least  efficient  workers,  to  maintain  the 
poorest  and  least  costly  conditions  of  safety  and  sani- 
tation compatible  with  the  efficiency  of  the  workers  in 
the  shop  from  day  to  day  (regardless  of  the  long-time 
effects  upon  the  workers  or  their  efficiency,  since,  if  they 
are  injured  or  made  ill,  there  are  plenty  more  outside 
to  take  their  places)  ;  to  lay  off  and  discharge  workers 
whenever  it  is  temporarily  economical ;  to  degrade  highly 
skilled  and  high-priced  workers,  or  to  displace  these  by 


THE  ECONOMIC  PROGRAM  285 

less  skilled  and  lower-priced  workers,  and  to  lessen  the 
number  of  workers  employed  to  do  a  given  amount  of 
work  wherever  possible  by  the  introduction  of  new  ma- 
chinery and  new  processes,  etc.  The  union  which  repre- 
sents the  working  group  is  seeking  the  continuous  em- 
ployment of  all  its  members  at  the  highest  possible  wage 
rates  and  under  the  best  possible  conditions  as  respects 
hours,  security  and  continuity  of  work,  safety,  comfort 
and  sanitation,  etc.  All  the  efforts  of  the  employer  just 
stated,  in  the  interest  of  greatest  possible  output  at  least 
possible  cost,  are  thus  seen  to  be  directly  opposed  to  the 
interest  and  welfare  of  the  working  group. 

2.  The  wage  dividend  of  the  group  of  workers  is 
determined  by  bargaining  between  the  employer  and  the 
workers  over  the  division  of  the  group  product.  The 
relative  bargaining  strength  of  the  employer  and  the 
workers  being  determined,  the  workers  stand  frequently 
to  lose  in  wage  rates  or  in  the  amount  of  wages  through 
increased  effort  and  output  of  the  group,  since  the  in- 
creased output  of  the  group  means  generally  lower  prices 
for  the  unit  of  the  product,  rarely  or  never  an  increase 
of  the  value  of  group  products  proportional  to  the  in- 
creased effort  and  output  and  may  mean  simply  increased 
effort  and  output  for  the  same  or  even  less  value 
of  product.  Under  these  circumstances,  increased  effort 
and  output  of  the  group  never  mean  a  proportionate 
increase  of  wages  for  the  group,  but  always  a  lowering 
of  the  wage  rate,  in  the  sense  of  the  wages  for  a  given 
amount  of  work  and  output,  and  they  may  mean  more 
work  for  the  same  or  even  less  pay.  Thus  the  group 
which  increases  output  generally  benefits  other  groups 
at  its  own  expense  in  wage  rates  or  wages.  Moreover, 
.this  increase  of  output  of  the  group  where  the  demand 


286  TRADE  UNIONISM 

for  the  goods  is  not  extremely  elastic,  tends  to  weaken 
the  bargaining  strength  of  the  workers  and  so  still  fur- 
ther to  lower  wage  rates,  since  where  it  is  the  result  of 
increased  effort  of  the  workers  it  means  increased  supply 
of  labor  without  a  correspondingly  increased  demand  for 
it,  and  where  it  is  the  result  of  new  machinery  and  new 
processes  it  means  lessened  demand  for  the  labor  without 
any  lessened  supply  of  it,  speaking  always  in  group 
terms.  In  the  one  case  it  especially  exposes  the  workers 
to  lower  wage  rates,  in  the  other  to  unemployment. 

3.  The  group  dividend  being  determined,  the  wages 
and  conditions  of  employment  of  the  workers  in  the 
group  depend  upon  the  relative  bargaining  strength  of 
the  employers  and  the  workers. 

4.  The  bargaining  strength  of  the  employer  is  always 
greater  than  that  of  the  individual  worker,  owing  to 
circumstances  which  we  have  already  discussed. 

5.  The  full  bargaining  strength  of  the  employer  will 
always  be  exerted  against  the  individual  worker  because 
of  the  opposition  of  interest  and  other  circumstances 
already  discussed. 

6.  Therefore,  individual  bargaining  between  the 
employer  and  the  worker,  that  is,  competition  between 
the  individual  workers  in  the  group  for  work  and  wages, 
will  tend  to  result  in  lowering  wages  and  conditions  of 
employment  and  keeping  them  down  to  what  can  be 
demanded  and  secured  by  the  weakest  bargainers  of  the 
labor  group. 

7.  This  tendency  applies  not  only  to  the  case  of  the 
original  bargain  but  tends  to  result  whenever,  after  the 
workers  of  the  group  are  employed,  they  allow  the  em- 
ployer to  pit  them  one  against  the  other.  This  occurs 
whenever  in  the  course  of  the  work  they  enter  into  indi- 


THE  ECONOMIC  PROGRAM  287 

vidual  bargaining,  or  whenever,  as  in  the  case  already 
considered,  individual  workers  of  the  group  are  forced 
or  allow  themselves  to  be  tempted  by  bonuses  or  pre- 
miums to  speed  up,  and  thus  to  compete  with  one  an- 
other. 

The  result  of  these  assumptions,  which  are  the  work- 
ers' interpretation  of  group  experience,  is  the  positive 
economic  program  of  unionism,  the  broad  outline  of 
which  may  be  put  into  two  propositions:  (i)  If  the 
wages  and  conditions  of  the  group  are  not  to  sink  to 
what  can  be  commanded  by  its  weakest  labor  bargainer, 
they  must  make  the  strength  of  the  weakest  bargainer 
equal  to  the  strength  of  the  group.  (2)  If  the  wages 
of  the  group  are  to  be  kept  from  falling  or  to  be  in- 
creased, and  the  conditions  of  employment  maintained 
or  bettered,  they  must  constantly  attempt  to  increase  the 
bargaining  strength  of  the  group  as  against  the  employ- 
ers of  the  group  and  as  against  other  groups. 

How%  then,  can  the  unions  carry  this  program  into 
effect?  First,  how  can  they  make  the  strength  of  the 
weakest  bargainer  of  the  group  equal  to  the  bargaining 
strength  of  the  group?  If  we  accept  the  position  of 
the  workers  as  so  far  tenable,  it  is  evident  that  this  can 
be  done  only  by  removing  the  possibility  of  all  compe- 
tition between  the  individual  workers  of  the  group.  The 
general  method  devised  by  the  unions  for  accomplishing 
this  is  to  substitute  collective  bargaining  for  individual 
bargaining  between  the  employers  and  the  workers. 
This,  however,  tells  us  little.  In  order  to  understand 
what  it  means,  we  must  ask,  what  are  the  principles 
which  the  unionists  seek  to  estabUsh  by  collective  bar- 
gaining, and  what  are  the  policies,  demands  and  methods 


288  TRADE  UNIONISM 

which  they  find  it  necessary  to  adopt  in  order  to  main- 
tain these  principles? 

The  unionists  say  that  it  can  be  done  only  by  the  estab- 
lishment and  maintenance  of  two  principles:  (i)  the 
principle  of  uniformity  in  regard  to  all  conditions  of 
work  and  pay  where  competition  between  the  workers 
can  take  place;  and  (2)  the  principle  of  standardization 
or  restriction  on  changes  in  the  conditions  of  work  and 
pay  over  considerable  periods  of  time.  That  is,  w^her- 
ever  the  workers  are  doing  the  same  kinds  of  work,  the 
conditions  governing  their  w^ork  and  pay  must  be  uni- 
form for  all,  and  wherever  changes  In  the  conditions 
might  threaten  conditions  of  uniformity  of  work  and 
pay  of  all  such  workers,  these  changes  must  be  made  only 
on  such  terms  as  the  union  shall  agree  to.  To  get  at 
the  main  union  policies,  then,  we  have  only  to  ask,  where 
might  lack  of  uniformity  in  conditions  of  work  and  pay, 
or  unrestricted  changes  in  these,  result  in  individual  com- 
petition between  the  workers?  And  to  get  the  rest  of 
their  program  in  this  connection  we  have  only  to  ask, 
what  demands  and  methods  are  necessary  to  prevent 
competition  and  the  violation  of  these  principles,  where 
all  the  assumptions  of  the  unions  are  considered  to  hold? 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  competition  can  easily  take 
place  between  worker  and  worker  in  regard  to  the  wage 
rate.  Therefore,  in  order  to  uphold  the  principle  of 
uniformity,  a  standard  rate  of  imges  must  be  established 
for  each  subgroup  of  workers,  at  least  as  a  minimum. 
Even  with  a  standard  wage  rate,  competition  can  take 
place  with  respect  to  the  amount  of  work  and  output 
that  shall  be  done.  Hence,  to  uphold  the  principles  in 
question,  a  standard  holt's  or  day's  ivork  must  be  estab- 
lished for  each  subgroup — at  least  as  a  maximum — and 


THE  ECONOMIC  PROGRAM  289 

all  speeders  must  be  eliminated.  Competition  can  also 
take  place  in  regard  to  the  number  of  hours  worked  per 
day  or  week.  Hence,  if  the  principle  is  to  be  upheld, 
the  necessity  of  a  standard  day  or  week.  But  it  is  evi- 
dent that  if  these  standards  are  established  we  have 
practically  a  standard  zvage  as  a  niaxiimini.  It  is  evi- 
dent, also,  that  nothing  conduces  so  much  to  speeding  by 
individuals  and  the  violation  of  the  standards  previously 
mentioned  as  secret  bonuses  and  premiums  or  any  form 
of  "efficiency  payments."  This  is  one  reason  why  the 
unions  look  askance  at  piece  work  where  they  are  not  in 
a  position  to  control  its  operation,  and  why  they  abhor 
premium  and  bonus  systems  of  all  kinds. 

But  competition  or  underbidding  is  possible  not  only 
in  regard  to  wage  rates,  hours,  and  the  exertion  and 
output,  but  also  in  regard  to  the  safety  and  sanitation 
of  the  shop,  the  comfort  and  convenience  of  working 
conditions,  the  men  one  is  willing  to  work  with,  the 
times  of  beginning  and  ending  work,  the  convenience  of 
shifts,  the  time,  place,  mode  and  character  of  payment, 
the  materials  and  tools  used,  and  all  the  minor  details 
and  conditions  of  work  and  pay.  Hence,  to  secure  uni- 
formity, the  necessity  from  the  union's  standpoint  of 
minute  specification  of  standards  in  regard  to  all  the 
incidents  of  work  and  pay,  from  which  no  deviation  can 
be  allowed.  This  explains  the  multitude  of  petty  and 
harassing  restrictions  of  which  employers  complain. 

It  is  evident  that  these  standards  cannot  persist  if 
they  are  violated  with  impunity;  yet  successful  enter- 
prise demands  some  degree  of  flexibility.  Hence  a  long 
list  of  irregularities  and  violations  which  the  unions  are 
forced  to  allow  but  which  they  seek  to  punish  so  that 
they  may  not  become  habitual  and  so  break  down  the 


290  TRADE  UNIONISM 

principle  of  uniformity.  This  is  accomplished  by  charg- 
ing enough  extra  so  as  not  to  allow  of  underbidding  or 
of  extra  profit  to  the  employer,  such  as  extra  pay 
(time  and  a  half  or  rate  and  a  half)  for  overtime,  for 
doing  extraordinary  kinds  of  work,  for  work  in  irregular 
ways,  at  irregular  times  (Sundays  and  holidays)  or 
under  irregular  circumstances. 

It  is  evident  that  these  standards  cannot  be  maintained 
effectively  so  far  as  all  the  workers  are  concerned  if  the 
employer  is  allowed  to  adopt  at  will  changes  in  methods 
and  processes  of  work.  Such  changes  make  it  possible 
for  the  employer  to  create  new  tasks  and  jobs  for  which 
no  standards  or  uniformities  have  been  established,  to 
lop  off  parts  of  the  work  from  the  old  standardized 
classes,  along  with  laying  off  the  workman  himself,  and 
in  both  ways  to  create  new  classes  of  workers  with  new 
conditions  of  work  and  perhaps  lower  rates  of  pay. 
Hence,  if  the  workers  are  to  maintain  their  old  standards 
of  work  and  pay  for  all  the  members  of  the  group,  to 
prevent  the  degradation  of  skilled  workers  and  the' 
introduction  into  their  midst  of  subgroups  in  which  com- 
petition exists,  they  must  prevent  the  introduction  of 
such  new  conditions  of  work — the  creation  of  new  tasks 
and  jobs  and  new  classification  of  workers — except  un- 
der their  control  and  under  conditions  that  will  secure 
on  the  new  jobs  conditions  of  work  and  pay  uniform 
with  the  old.  Generally  this  means  that  they  cannot 
allow  these  changes  except  when  a  new  collective  bargain 
is  made,  unless  they  can  foresee  and  provide  for  them. 
They  must  restrict  the  change  of  conditions  of  work  and 
pay  over  considerable  periods  of  time  if  the  principle 
of  standardization  or  uniformity  is  to  be  upheld.  This 
means  that  th^y  intist  carefully  delimit  the  field  of  work 


THE  ECONOMIC  PROGRAM  291 

of  the  group  and  keep  it  the  same.  Hence,  in  part,  the 
union  tendency  to  resist  new  trades,  new  machinery,  new 
methods  and  processes,  and  hence  a  part  of  their  opposi- 
tion to  time  study. 

But  under  all  these  circumstances,  with  the  constant 
menace  of  industrial  change,  the  constant  effort  of  the 
employer  to  induce  individual  workers  to  compete  with 
their  fellows  for  their  own  advantage  by  pressure,  or 
by  'the  holding  out  of  immediate  advantages  in  work 
and  pay,  competition  cannot  be  kept  out  and  these  prin- 
ciples upheld  unless  there  is  a  high  degree  of  solidarity 
of  the  working  group.  The  union  must  control  the 
working  personnel  of  the  group,  and  all  the  members 
in  the  group  must  feel  that  their  interests  are  common 
rather  than  individual  and  must  be  willing  to  sacrifice 
individual  advantages  to  the  common  good.  Hence,  to 
maintain  these  principles,  the  union  must  determine  who 
shall  be  members  of  the  group  and  must  be  able  espe- 
cially to  determine  who  shall  come  into  the  shop.  This 
is  the  real  basis  of  the  demand  for  the  closed  shop  and 
the  abhorrence  of  scab  or  nonunion  workers. 

Furthermore,  they  must  be  able  to  exercise  constant 
oversight  in  respect  to  the  conditions  of  work  and  the 
workers  in  the  shop.  Hence  one  reason  for  the  demand 
of  union  representatives  on  the  job,  stewards  and  busi- 
ness agents,  and  for  the  coming  into  the  situation  at  any 
time  of  other  union  officials  to  pass  upon  conditions,  to 
present  complaints,  to  discipline  workers,  and  to  settle 
disputes.  They  have  learned  from  experience  that  non- 
union men  in  the  shop  will  not  ordinarily  live  up  to  the 
rules  of  the  union,  and  even  union  men  who  are  de- 
pendent upon  the  employer  dare  not  make  full  complaints 
and  resist  the  demands  of  the  employer.    They  require 


292  TRADE  UNIONISM 

to  be  backed  by  the  official  representatives  and  to  com- 
plain and  negotiate  through  them. 

But,  further,  the  unionists  have  found  that  even  in  a 
closed  shop  where  all  the  workers  are  unionists  the  soli- 
darity of  the  group  cannot  be  maintained  where  the  work- 
ers are  too  highly  specialized  and  lack  a  considerable 
degree  of  craft  training.  Under  such  circumstances  it 
is  easy  for  the  employer  to  pit  worker  against  worker, 
arouse  jealousies,  and  induce  individual  competition. 
Hence,  in  part,  the  union  abhorrence  of  specialisation 
and  their  demand  for  the  apprenticeship  system. 

So  much  for  uniformity  and  standardization  in  order 
to  make  the  strength  of  the  weakest  member  of  the 
group  equal  to  the  bargaining  strength  of  the  group  as  a 
whole.  The  methods  by  which  they  try  to  enforce  these 
policies  are  in  general  anything  that  works,  strikes,  boy- 
cotts, legislation  where  necessary,  violence,  etc.  It  is  to 
be  noticed  that  these  policies,  while  intended  primarily 
to  uphold  the  principles  claimed,  do  generally  result  in 
the  restriction  of  output  and  industrial  progress.  They 
are  not  so  intended  consciously  but  they  do  have  these 
effects.  All  this  also  implies  the  necessity  of  a  large 
control  of  all  the  conditions  of  industry,  work  and  pay 
in  the  shop  by  the  organized  workers.  This  is  what 
they  call  industrial  democracy,  displacing  the  complete 
authority  of  the  employer  in  matters  of  hiring,  dis- 
charge, discipline,  promotion,  demotion,  and  so  on. 

I  pointed  out  that  the  broad  outline  of  the  program 
may  be  put  into  two  propositions :  ( i )  If  the  wages  and 
conditions  of  the  group  are  not  to  sink  to  what  can  be 
commanded  by  its  weakest  bargainer,  the  workers  must 
make  the  strength  of  the  weakest  equal  to  the  strength 
of  the  group.     (2)  If  the  wages  of  the  group  are  not  t<> 


THE  ECONOMIC  PROGRAM  293 

fall  and  are  to  be  increased  and  the  conditions  of  em- 
ployment bettered,  the  workers  must  constantly  endeavor 
to  increase  the  bargaining  strength  of  the  group  as 
against  the  employers  of  the  group  and  as  against  other 
groups.  In  general,  the  principles,  policies  and  methods 
used  to  make  the  bargaining  strength  of  the  weakest 
equal  to  the  bargaining  strength  of  the  group  also  have 
the  effect  of  strengthening  the  bargaining  pov/er  of  the 
group  as  against  the  employer.  In  general,  therefore, 
the  program  for  the  first  purpose  is  also  employed  in 
the  attempt  to  force  the  employers  to  advance  wages  and 
to  improve  conditions  of  employment,  that  is,  to  force  a 
larger  share  of  the  output  to  be  devoted  to  bettering 
wages  and  conditions. 

These  methods,  however,  so  employed,  are  not  so 
much  in  the  interest  of  uniformity  as  in  opposition  to 
industrial  changes  which  allow  the  substitution  of  less 
skilled  for  more  skilled  workers,  of  specialized 
workers  for  trained  craftsmen,  of  machinery  for  hand 
labor,  and,  so,  the  elimination  of  workers  in  the  group. 
It  can  readily  be  seen  that,  if  these  changes  were  al- 
lowed, wages  and  conditions  of  employment  could  hardly 
be  advanced,  and  unemployment  within  the  group,  with 
greater  competition  and  lower  wages,  might  result  even 
were  the  group  dividend  increased  and  the  closed  shop 
maintained,  provided  the  union  assumptions  be  main- 
tained that  wages  and  conditions  are  determined  by  bar- 
gaining under  conditions  which  make  the  interests  of 
the  employer  and  the  worker  opposed.  For  these 
changes  would  constantly  create  what  is  virtually  an 
increasing  supply  of  labor  in  the  group  and  would  enable 
the  employer  more  readily  to  substitute  less  skilled  and 
low-priced  labor  for  more  skilled  and  high-priced  labor. 


294  TRADE  UNIONISM 

The  open  shop  would  obviously  aggravate  these  adverse 
conditions.  Degradation  of  skilled  workers,  increased 
competition  among  the  workers  in  the  group,  and  greater 
uncertainty  and  discontinuity  of  employment  Inevitably 
result  from  unregulated  changes  in  industrial  conditions. 
The  bargaining  strength  of  the  group  against  the  em- 
ployer cannot  be  increased  or  even  maintained  if  they 
are  allowed.  In  the  attempt  to  increase  this  bargaining 
strength  the  tmion  recognizes  the  advantage  of  a  monop- 
olistic control  of  the  labor  supply.  Hence  another  rea- 
son for  apprenticeship  demands  and  the  closed  shop. 

Moreover,  the  bargaining  strength  of  the  group  Is 
almost  always  bound  to  be  weak  compared  with  that  of 
the  employer.  Inimical  changes  cannot  be  prevented,  the 
closed  shop  cannot  be  maintained,  advantage  cannot  be 
taken  of  favorable  opportunities  for  advances,  and  losses 
in  wages  and  conditions  cannot  be  staved  off  under  unfa- 
vorable conditions,  granting  the  union  assumptions,  if 
the  group  is  not  recognised  as  the  bargaining  entity,  and 
If  It  is  not  at  least  as  acute  a  bargainer  as  the  employer. 
This  requires  that  the  bargaining  for  the  unions  be  car- 
ried on  by  skilled  specialists — men  who  know  all  the 
conditions  of  the  trade  and  the  market.  But  the  men  in 
actual  employ  cannot  have  this  knowledge  and  skill. 
Hence  the  union  demand  that  the  employer  bargain  with 
the  group  through  representatives  of  the  workers  not  In 
his  employ.  Thus  Vv^e  have  representative  bargaining. 
But  the  union  still  is  not  so  strong  a  bargaining  entity  as 
the  employer  if  it  cannot  enforce  the  terms  of  the  bar- 
gain on  the  employer  and  its  own  members.  Hence  the 
necessity  of  a  strong  union  with  strong  disciplinary  pow- 
ers, and  hence,  again,  the  necessity  for  group  solidarity 
and  the  closed  shop  and  apprenticeship. 


THE  ECONOMIC  PROGRAM  295 

The  other  part  of  the  program  which  aims  to 
strengthen  the  group  against  other  groups  is  closely  re- 
lated to  the  group  wage  theory  which  we  have  discussed. 
Believing  that  wages  and  conditions  of  employment  of 
the  particular  group  depend  on  strengthening  its  eco- 
nomic position  or  bargaining  power  in  the  sale  of  its 
products  as  against  other  groups,  the  unionists  naturally 
seek  directly  to  limit  the  output  of  the  group  and  directly 
to  limit  the  labor  supply  of  the  group  through  appren- 
ticeship regulations  and  the  closed  shop,  on  the  basis  of 
the  same  reasoning  employed  by  capitalistic  monopolies. 
From  all  this  it  can  readily  be  seen  why  unionists  object 
so  strenuously  to  working  with  nonunionists  or  scabs, 
and  to  handling  any  work  that  has  been  done  by  scabs. 


CHAPTER   XII 
SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  AND  LABOR  WELFARE 

Scientific  management,  so-called,  is  one  aspect  of  the 
general  efficiency  philosophy  and  movement  which  of 
late  have  gripped  the  imagination  of  the  business  world, 
and  which  may  be  said  to  constitute  the  latest  phase  of 
capitalistic  industrial  development. 

The  term  "scientific  management"  is  of  quite  recent 
origin.  In  its  genesis,  it  had  reference  specifically  to 
the  "Taylor  system,"  first  developed  and  applied  by  Mr. 
Taylor,  the  well-known  author  of  "Shop  Management," 
and  joint  inventor  of  the  Taylor-White  process  of  the 
manufacture  of  high-speed  tool  steel. 

By  custom,  the  term  scientific  management  has  been 
gradually  extended  to  include  several  modifications  and 
imitations  of  the  Taylor  system  and  some  systems  for 
which  independence  of  development  is  claimed.  Thus, 
at  the  present  time,  it  is  generally  applied  in  common 
usage  indiscriminately  to  the  systems  of  Mr.  Taylor, 
Mr.  H.  L.  Gantt  and  Mr.  Harrington  Emerson,  and 
frequently  to  the  principles  and  methods  of  several  other 
"efficiency  experts." 

How  extensively  these  systems  are  in  actual  opera- 
tion, it  is  impossible  to  say.  Both  employers  and  sys- 
tematizers  seem  loath  to  give  information,  except  in 
cases  of  successful  application.  Probably  there  are  not 
more  than  a  couple  of  hundred  shops,  scattered  through 

296 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  ^, 

the  various  industries  and  in  various  sections  of  the 
country,  which  would  be  sponsored  by  the  scientific  man- 
agement group,  and  relatively  few  of  these  would  be 
regarded  as  valid  examples  of  scientific  management  by 
the  followers  of  Mr.  Taylor.  But  the  significance  of 
the  movement  is  not  to  be  thus  measured.  The  ideals, 
principles  and  methods  of  scientific  management  are 
permeating  the  whole  business  world,  and  the  movement 
bids  fair  to  affect  in  large  measure  industry  and  indus- 
trial relations  generally.  It  touches,  therefore,  the  wel- 
fare, not  only  of  employers  and  workers,  but  of  all  indi- 
viduals and  groups  in  society,  and  warrants  the  keenest 
universal  interest. 

In  its  original  conception  the  Taylor  system  of  scien- 
tific management  seems  to  have  been  literally  a  system 
of  shop  management  concerned  primarily  with  the  prob- 
lem of  efficient  manufacture  or  productive  efficiency  in 
the  shop.  The  problem  was  to  secure  the  most  effective 
character  and  use  of  machinery,  tools,  and  materials, 
the  most  effective  material  and  organic  arrangements  in 
the  shop,  and  the  full  cooperative  activity  of  the  workers. 
Mr.  Taylor,  in  his  paper,  "A  Piece-Rate  System,"  pre- 
sented to  the  American  Society  of  Mechanical  Engineers 
in  1895,  confirmed  this  idea  of  the  scope  and  character 
of  the  new  system  by  contrasting  the  care  with  which 
managers  often  "go  most  minutely  into  every  detail  of 
the  buying  and  selling  and  financiering,  and  arrange 
every  element  of  these  branches  in  the  most  systematic 
manner,"  ^  with  the  comparative  lack  of  restrictions  as 
to  the  principles  and  methods  which  the  superintendent 
or  foreman  is  to  pursue,  either  in  the  management  of  his 
men  or  in  the  care  of  the  company's  plant,  and  by  point- 

1  "A  Piece-Rate  System,"  §  3  f . 


298  TRADE  UNIONISM 

ing  to  the  differential  piece-rate  system  of  payment  as 
"the  means  which  the  writer  [Mr.  Taylor]  has  found  to 
be  by  far  the  most  effective  in  obtaining  the  maximum 
output  of  a  shop,  and  which,  so  far  as  he  can  see,  satisfies 
the  legitimate  requirements  of  the  men  and  the  manage- 
ment." 2 

As  time  passed,  however,  the  character,  scope,  and 
significance  of  scientific  management  seem  to  have  stead- 
ily enlarged  in  the  minds  of  Mr.  Taylor,  his  immediate 
followers,  and  his  imitators,  so  that  when  the  term 
"scientific  management"  was  definitely  adopted  by  ad- 
herents of  Mr.  Taylor  as  descriptive  of  his  system,  the 
intent,  apparently,  was  to  emphasize  claims  for  it  much 
broader  and  more  fundamental  than  those  originally 
made — claims  which  seem  to  warrant  the  following  sum- 
marization : 

1.  Efficiency,  not  only  in  the  mechanical  aspects  and 
as  it  depends  on  organic  arrangements  and  human  effort 
in  the  shop,  but  with  respect  to  the  functions  of  a  going 
industrial  establishment,  is  governed  by  fundamental 
natural  laws,  not  made  by  man,  and  unalterable  by  man. 
And  not  only  this,  but  the  direct  relation  between  pro- 
ductive effort  and  human  welfare,  as  well  as  the  distri- 
bution of  the  products  of  industry,  is  likewise  governed 
by  such  natural  and  unalterable  laws,  i.e.,  the  specific 
character  and  amount  of  work  which  any  laborer  can 
and  ought  to  do,  and  the  proportions  of  the  product 
which  ought  to  go  to  management  and  men  and  to 
each  individual  workman,  are  thus  governed. 

2.  Scientific  management  has  discovered  the  means 
by  which  the  facts  underlying  these  natural  laws,  which 
govern  production  in  the  larger  sense — productive  wel- 

»  "A  Piece-Rate  System,"  §  50. 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  299 

fare  and  distribution — can  be  determined  and  established 
as  objective,  matter-of-fact  data,  quite  apart  and  di- 
vorced from  human  judgment,  opinion,  or  will;  i.e.,  the 
means  by  which  all  productive  arrangements  and  proc- 
esses, and  all  the  relations  between  managers  or  em- 
ployers and  workmen  can  be  reduced  to  an  exact  scien- 
tific basis  of  objective  fact  and  law — a  means,  in  other 
words,  in  the  application  of  which,  human  will,  judg- 
ment, and  cunning  cannot  enter  so  as  to  affect  the  result, 
and  which,  therefore,  w^ll  necessarily  reveal  the  truth  in 
regard  to  the  most  efficient  arrangement  and  method,  the 
kind  and  amount  of  work  which  any  man  can  and  ought 
to  do,  and  the  share  of  the  product  which  every  factor 
and  every  individual  ought  justly  to  receive. 

It  is  true  that  these  sweeping  claims  have  never  been 
explicitly  stated  by  authoritative  members  of  the  scien- 
tific management  group  in  exactly  this  form,  but  they 
seem  to  be  amply  warranted  by  many  spoken  and  pub- 
lished statements  emanating  from  Mr.  Taylor  and  those 
claiming  to  be  his  adherents.^    Nor  have  the  members  of 

^  The  following  quotations  are  taken  from  the  "Labor  Claims 
of  .Scientific  Management,"  authenticated  by  Mr.  Frederick  W. 
Taylor  at  the  outset  of  the  writer's  investigation  of  scientific 
management  and  labor,  made  for  the  United  States  Commission 
on  Industrial  Relations.  {Scientific  Management  and  Labor,  pp. 
140-149.     The  italics  are  mine.) 

"Scientific  management  is  a  system  devised  by  industrial  en- 
gineers for  the  purpose  of  subserving  the  common  interests  of 
employers,  workmen,  and  society  at  large  through  .  .  .  the  just 
and  scientific  distribution  of  the  product." 

"Scientific  management  is  based  upon  the  fundamental  as- 
sumptions of  harmony  of  interests  between  employers  and 
workers.  .  .  ." 

"It  substitutes  exact  knowledge  for  guesswork  and  seeks  to 


300  TRADE  UNIONISM 

the  scientific  management  cult  pointed  out  fully  the 
means   by   which  these   claims  are  to   be  made  good. 

establish  a  code  of  natural  lazvs  equally  binding  upon  employers 
and  workmen." 

"Scientific  management  thus  seeks  to  substitute  in  the  shop 
discipline  natural  law  in  place  of  a  code  of  discipline  based  upon 
caprice  and  the  arbitrary  power  of  man." 

"Every  protest  of  every  workman  must  be  handled  .  .  .  and 
the  right  or  wrong  of  the  complaint  must  be  settled  ,  .  .  by  the 
great  code  of  lazifs  zvhich  has  been  developed  and  which  must 
satisfy  both  sides." 

"Scientific  management  guards  the  workers  against  over- 
speeding  and  exhaustion  nervously  and  physically:  (a)  by  sub- 
stituting exact  knowledge  for  guesswork  in  the  setting  of  the 
task;  (b)  by  careful  studies  of  fatigue  and  the  setting  of  the 
task  on  the  basis  of  a  large  number  of  performances  by  men  of 
different  capacities  and  with  due  and  scientific  allowance  for  the 
human  factor  and  legitimate  delays." 

"The  speed  of  the  men  is  determined  by  psychological  and 
physical  tests  and  is  always  set  with  reference  to  long-time 
results." 

"Scientific  management  insures  just  treatment  of  individual 
workers:  (a)  by  substituting  the  nde  of  lazu  for  arbitrary  de- 
cisions of  foremen,  employers,  and  unions;  (b)  by  giving  the 
workers  in  the  end  equal  voice  with  the  employer.  Both  can 
refer  only  to  the  arbitrament  of  science  and  fact." 

"Scientific  management  increases  the  skill,  efficiency,  and  pro- 
ductivity of  the  workers:  (o)  by  the  scientific  selection  of 
workmen  so  that  each  man  is  set  to  the  highest  task  for  which 
his  physical  and  intellectual  capacity  fits  him." 

"Scientific  management  .  .  .  gives  a  voice  to  both  parties, 
and  substitutes  joint  obedience  of  employers  and  workers  to  fact 
and  law  for  obedience  to  personal  authority." 

"Time  and  motion  study  is  the  accurate  scientific  method  by 
which  the  great  mass  of  lazi^s  governing  the  best  and  easiest  and 
most  productive  movements  of  men  are  investigated.  These 
laws  constitute  a  great  code  which,  for  the  first  time  in  industry, 
completely  controls  the  acts  of  the  management  as  well  as  those 


I 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  301 

There  is  strong  evidence,  however,  that  both  ]\Ir.  Taylor 
and  many  of  his  follow^ers  have  beheved  that  the  prin- 

of  the  workmen.  .  .  .  They  substitute  exact  knowledge  for 
prejudiced  opinion  and  force  in  determining  all  the  conditions 
of  work  and  pay. 

"They  thus  make  possible  .  .  .  the  adaptation  of  the  task  to 
the  intellectual  and  physical  capacity  of  the  workers;  the  pay- 
ment of  the  workers  in  exact  proportion  to  their  efficiency;  the 
most  efficient  methods  of  performing  the  task  .  .  .  exact  cost 
accounting  .  .  .  the  elimination  of  ignorant  and  cutthroat  com- 
petition." 

"The  modes  of  payment  employed  by  scientific  management 
insure  pay  according  to  efficiency  .  .  .  secure  justice  for  each 
worker." 

The  following  is  taken  from  the  record  of  an  interview  which 
the  writer  had  with  Mr.  Taylor  on  November  11,  1914:  "Tay- 
lor, in  general,  approved  my  statement  of  the  labor  claims  of 
scientific  management.  He  wants  more  emphasis  placed  upon 
the  idea  of  government  by  law  and  democracy.  He  says  that 
people,  in  general,  have  not  a  broad  enough  idea  of  scientific 
management,  .  .  .  Taylor  emphasizes  the  notion  that  scientific 
management  is  working  out  laws  in  the  place  of  opinion.  These 
laws  are  not  subject  to  collective  bargaining,  any  more  than 
the  tensile  strength  of  steel.  ...  In  going  over  my  statement 
of  the  labor  claims*  of  scientific  management,  Taylor  asked  to 
have  two  changes  made:  under  A-4,  'Scientific  management 
seeks  thus  to  substitute  in  the  shop  discipline  .  .  .  natural  law  in 
the  place  of  .  .  .'  he  would  add,  'No  such  democracy  has  ever 
existed  in  industry  before.  Every  protest  of  every  workman 
must  be  handled  ...  by  those  on  the  management  side,  and 
the  right  and  wrong  of  the  complaint  must  be  settled,  not  by 
the  owner,  the  management,  or  the  workman,  but  by  the  great 
code  of  laws  which  has  been  developed,  and  which  must  give 
satisfaction  to  both  sides.'  " 

Under  C-i-a:  "Taylor  objects  to  my  consideration  of  time 
and  motion  study  simply  from  the  standpoint  of  efficiency  and 
justice  to  the  workers  and  the  improvement  of  their  conditions. 
He  would  say :  'Time  and  motion  study  is  the  accurate  scientific 


302  TRADE  UNIONISM 

cipal,  if  not  the  inclusive,  means  necessary  to  the  dis- 
covery and  estabHshment  of  the  unalterable  facts  and 
laws  of  efficient  production  and  just  industrial  relation- 
ships has  been  found  in  the  special  instrument  which 
has  particularly  characterized  all  phases  of  scientific 
management,  viz.,  time  and  motion  study. 

"Scientific  management,"  declared  Mr.  Taylor,  "at- 
tempts to  substitute  in  the  relations  between  employers 
and  workers  the  government  of  fact  and  law  for  the 
rule  of  force  and  opinion.  It  substitutes  exact  knowl- 
edge for  guesswork  and  seeks  to  establish  a  code  of 
natural  law  equally  binding  upon  employers  and  work- 
men." ^  In  time  and  motion  study  it  has  discovered  and 
developed  an  "accurate  scientific  method  by  which  the 
great  mass  of  laws  governing  the  easiest  and  most  pro- 
ductive movements  of  men  are  investigated.  These 
laws  constitute  a  great  code  which,  for  the  first  time  in 
industry,  completely  controls  the  acts  of  the  manage- 
ment as  well  as  those  of  the  workmen."  ^ 

Thus,  time  and  motion  study,  according  to  Mr.  Taylor, 

method  by  which  the  great  mass  of  laws  governing  the  best 
and  easiest  and  most  productive  movements  of  men  are  investi- 
gated. These  laws  constitute  a  great  code  which,  for  the  first 
time  in  industry,  completely  controls  the  acts  of  the  manage- 
ment as  well  as  those  of  the  workmen,  etc' 

"Although  I  thought  that  I  had  taken  particular  pains  in  my 
statement  of  the  labor  claims  of  scientific  management  to  bring 
out  clearly  and  to  emphasize  the  idea  of  the  government  of  law 
in  the  place  of  force  and  opinion,  as  constituting  the  essentials 
of  the  scientific  management  spirit,  Taylor  continuously  harped 
on  this  and  upon  my  failure  to  grasp  this  idea,  and,  therefore, 
insisted  that  these  changes  should  be  made,  in  order  to  give 
proper  emphasis  to  the  idea." 

^Scientific  Management  and  Labor,  p.  140. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  147. 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  303 

rules  out,  not  only  force  and  opinion  from  industrial 
affairs,  but  bargaining  as  well.  There  can  be  no  legiti- 
mate bargaining,  individual  or  collective,  where  the  facts 
have  been  thus  established.  "As  reasonably,"  said  Mr. 
Taylor,  "might  we  insist  on  bargaining  about  the  time 
and  place  of  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun."  ° 

But,  apparently,  according  to  Mr.  Taylor,  time  and 
motion  study  not  only  makes  possible  the  ruling  out  of 
force  and  opinion  from  industrial  affairs,  a  relatively 
just  distribution  of  the  product  and  the  protection  of 
the  worker's  welfare  at  all  points,  but,  coupled  with  the 
fundamental  natural  laws  which  govern  all  industrial 
affairs  and  relations,  it  actualizes  this  possibility. 

It  makes  possible  the  assignment  of  each  worker  to  the 
task  for  which  he  is  best  fitted,  and  the  safeguarding  of 
him  against  over- fatigue  and  over-exhaustion;  and  be- 
cause of  this  same  harmony  of  Interests  it  turns  the  pos- 
sibility into  reality. 

It  not  only  makes  possible  the  removal  of  the  higgling 
for  advantage  and  the  rough  and  arbitrary  discipline  of 
foremen  and  employers,  but  it  actually  eliminates  these 
things. 

"Scientific  management,"  declared  Mr.  Taylor,  "de- 
mocratizes industry.  It  gives  a  voice  to  both  parties,  and 
substitutes  the  joint  obedience  of  employers  and  workers 
to  fact  and  law  for  obedience  to  personal  authority." 
"No  such  democracy  has  ever  existed  in  industry  before. 
Every  protest  of  every  workman  must  be  handled  by 
those  on  the  management  side,  and  the  right  or  wrong 
of  the  complaint  must  be  settled,  not  by  the  opinion  of 
the  management  or  the  workman,  but  by  the  great  code 
of  laws  which  has  been  developed,  and  which  must  sat- 

^  Ibid.,  p.  40. 


304  TRADE  UNIONISM 

isfy  both  sides."  It  gives  "to  the  worker  in  the  end 
equal  voice  with  the  employer.  Both  can  refer  only  to 
the  arbitrament  of  science  and  fact."  ^ 

All  this  and  much  more  is  the  result  of  this  instrument 
for  the  determination  of  the  facts  and  laws  of  industry 
which  scientific  management  claims  to  have  discovered. 

There  can  be  little  doubt,  then,  that  Mr.  Taylor  looked 
upon  scientific  management  as  truly  scientific  in  the  sense 
that  its  productive  and  distributive  policies  and  methods 
are  based  upon  unalterable  laws  of  nature  and  upon  facts 
discoverable,  but  unalterable,  by  the  management  or 
workmen  concerned.  In  this  his  followers  appear  to 
have  been  well  in  accord  with  him.  Moreover,  it  is 
evident  that  time  and  motion  study  is  the  principal  means 
upon  which  they  rely  for  the  discovery  of  this  scientific 
foundation  of  scientific  management.  Time  and  motion 
study,  tJiereforc,  must  he  regarded  as  the  chief  corner- 
stone of  scientific  management,  its  main  distinguishing 
feature,  and  the  point  of  departure  for  any  understand- 
ing and  judgment  of  its  claims,  especially  with  reference 
to  its  scientific  character  and  labor  zuelfare.  Let  us  then 
examine  the  nature  and  uses  and  effect  of  this  thing. 

There  seem  to  be  at  least  two  very  diverse  conceptions 
of  time  and  motion  study.  The  first  is  a  very  narrow 
one  with  respect  both  to  its  character  and  to  Its  uses,  held 
in  its  most  typical  form  by  labor  generally,  adherence  to 
which,  according  to  advocates  of  scientific  management, 
leads  to  much  misinterpretation  of  its  real  character  and 
uses.  The  second  Is  a  far  broader  conception,  not  always 
recognized  by  scientific  managers  themselves,  but  clearly 
implicated  in  the  later  claims  of  Mr.  Taylor,  and  in  the 
statements  and  methods  of  the  more  advanced  scientific 

^  Scientific  Management  and  Labor,  pp.  140-141,  145,  147. 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  305 

managers,  which  has  apparently  developed  along  with 
the  enlarged  and  enlarging  view  of  the  scope  and  char- 
acter of  scientific  management  previously  noted. 

In  its  narrower  conception,  and  as  understood  by  labor, 
generally,  time  and  motion  study  is  looked  upon  simply 
and  solely  as  an  instrument  for  task  setting  and  eflficiency 
rating,  used  thus,  In  the  main,  to  determine  how  much 
can  be  done  by  a  workman  engaged  in  a  given  operation, 
within  a  given  time,  and,  therefore,  to  set  the  maximum 
task  accomplishable  by  him  and  the  group  of  laborers  to 
which  he  belongs.  Labor  thus  pictures  a  cowering  work- 
man over  whomi  stands  a  labor  driver.  In  one  hand  he 
holds  a  split-second  watch.  In  the  other  he  has  a  sheet 
of  paper  on  which  are  set  down  the  elementary  motions 
of  which  the  job  is  made  up,  with  spaces  opposite  each 
in  which  may  be  recorded  the  time  taken  by  the  work- 
man to  make  each  motion.  The  watch  is  started.  The 
workman  jumps  to  his  task.  The  time  taken  for  each 
motion  involved  in  the  doing  of  the  job  is  recorded.  The 
operation  is  then  repeated  enough  times  to  satisfy  the 
observer  that  he  has  discovered  the  shortest  time  required 
by  the  worker  to  make  each  motion.  These  shortest  times 
are  then  summed  up  as  the  necessary  time,  and  this, 
with  some  allowance  for  human  necessities,  breakdowns, 
and  delays,  is  set  as  the  task  time. 

This,  I  say,  is  labor's  habitual  conception  of  time  and 
motion  study.  It  Is  supposed  to  be  employed  only  or 
mainly  for  the  purpose  of  task  setting,  and  It  is  assumed 
to  be  used  to  set  the  minimum  time  or  the  maximum  task 
to  which  the  laborers  can  be  forced. 

This  view  of  time  and  motion  study,  however,  accords 
ill  with  the  later  and  enlarged  conception  held,  appar- 
ently, by  Mr.  Taylor  and  by  many,  if  not  all,  of  the 


3o6  TRADE  UNIONISM 

present  members  of  the  scientific  management  group. 
Judged  by  this  standard,  it  is  erroneous  in  two  very  es- 
sential respects. 

In  the  first  place,  time  and  motion  study,  according 
to  this  later  conception,  when  used  for  task-setting  pur- 
poses, is  not  designed  to  discover  and  set  the  minimum 
time  or  the  maximum  task,  but  the  scientific  time  or  task, 
i.e.,  the  reasonable  or  just  task,  considering^  the  technical 
conditions,  the  character  and  training  of  the  workmen, 
tlie  element  of  fatigue,  etc. 

In  the  second  place,  time  and  motion  study,  in  its  larger 
conception,  is  not  merely  or  perhaps  mainly  a  method 
used  for  task  setting  and  efficiency  rating.  On  the  con- 
trary, in  the  light  of  the  recent  claims  based  upon  its 
use,  made  by  Mr.  Taylor,  and  of  the  problems  to  the 
solution  of  which  it  is  apparently  being  applied  by  pro- 
gressive scientific  managers,  time  and  motion  study  must 
he  conceived  as  little  less  than  a  universal  method  of  at- 
tempted accurate  industrial  analysis,  usable  with  or  with- 
out the  stop-watch,  to  discover,  at  almost  every  step  of 
the  productive  and  distributive  process,  not  only  the  most 
effective  material,  organic,  and  human  arrangements, 
adaptations,  and  combinations,  but  the  reasonable  de- 
mands which  can  be  made  upon  the  intelligence  and  en- 
ergy of  the  management  as  well  as  the  men,  and  the  just 
apportionment  of  the  product  to  all  the  factors  and  in- 
dividuals concerned. 

To  show  that  this  larger  conception  of  time  and  mo- 
tion study  is  not  a  mere  deduction  from  the  claims  made 
by  Mr.  Taylor,  we  have  only  to  consider  the  attitude 
of  some  of  the  advanced  scientific  managers  in  regard  to 
its  possible  uses. 

According  to  statements  made  by  scientific  managers, 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  307 

this  process  of  analysis  or  time  and  motion  study,  in 
the  larger  sense,  should,  where  possible,  begin  with  the 
determination  of  a  site  for  manufacture.  The  really 
scientific  manager,  starting  out  de  novo,  will  consider  all 
available  sites  with  reference  to  the  time  and  motion 
expenditure,  determined  by  actual  experiment,  necessary 
in  securing  an  adequate  supply  of  proper  materials,  in 
the  going  to  and  from  the  shop  of  the  numbers  of  the 
different  classes  of  workmen  needed  or  likely  to  be 
needed  in  the  shipment  and  marketing  of  the  product, 
etc.  Having  in  mind  the  character  of  the  productive 
process,  and  the  most  efficient  productive  arrangements 
possible,  he  will  then,  with  regard  to  the  greatest  pos- 
sible saving  of  waste  time  and  motion,  work  out,  with 
the  utmost  care,  and  with  reference  to  future  expansion, 
the  plans  for  the  construction  of  his  plant.  This  will  in- 
volve a  most  careful  study  of  all  the  general  internal 
arrangements  and  processes,  the  most  efficient  methods  of 
planning  the  work  to  be  done  and  of  routing  it  through 
the  shop  so  that  there  may  be  no  delay  in  transmitting 
orders,  no  waste  carriage  of  materials  and  partly  finished 
products,  no  lost  time  in  the  assembly  room  waiting  for 
dela3'ed  parts.  With  the  same  ends  in  view,  and  in  the 
same  manner,  he  will  also  determine  the  most  effective 
placement  of  machinery,  the  storage  of  tools  and  ma- 
terials, and  the  location  of  the  various  elements  of  the 
office  force. 

The  shop  constructed  and  the  machinery  installed,  he 
will  apply  time  and  motion  study  in  an  endless  series 
of  experimental  tests  to  determine  what  possible  improve- 
ments can  be  made  in  machinery  and  its  operation,  and 
in  the  tools,  fixtures,  materials,  and  specific  processes  of 
work.    The  best  feed  and  speed  for  each  machine,  with 


3o8  TRADE  UNIONISM 

reference  to  the  different  grades  of  materials,  will  then 
be  established.  The  different  jobs  or  processes  will  be 
analyzed  and  reanalyzed,  and  their  elements  experimen- 
tally combined  and  recombined,  the  tools  and  fixtures 
changed  and  rearranged,  and  all  these  variations  timed 
and  retimed  in  an  effort  to  discover  the  most  efficient 
productive  combinations  and  methods. 

This  time  and  motion  study  analysis  will  extend,  it 
is  thus  claimed,  to  every  feature  and  all  organic  rela- 
tionships of  the  mechanical  process  of  production.  But 
it  will  not  stop  there.  It  will  be  extended  to  cover  the 
managerial  functions  and  the  office  work.  The  duties  of 
the  managers,  superintendents,  and  especially  of  the  shop 
foremen  will  be  analytically  studied  and  reorganized. 
As  a  result,  the  work  of  the  old  managerial  functionaries 
will  be  split  up,  and  new  departments  with  new  depart- 
ment heads  established.  In  place  of  the  single  old-line 
foreman,  for  example,  charged  with  hiring,  discipline, 
discharge,  apportionment  of  w'ork,  the  setting  up  of  jobs, 
the  determination  of  speed  and  feed  of  machinery,  repair 
of  machinery  and  belting,  inspection  of  the  product,  etc., 
there  will  be  a  separate  head  charged  with  the  selection, 
hiring,  adaptation,  and  discharge  of  workmen,  and  a 
series  of  functional  foremen,  each  responsible  for  a  par- 
ticular duty,  e.g.,  a  gang  boss,  a  speed  boss,  a  repair  boss, 
an  inspector  of  work,  an  instructor,  a  route  clerk,  a  time 
and  cost  clerk,  and  a  disciplinarian.^  The  methods  of 
storage  and  delivery  of  tools  and  materials,  the  dispatch- 
ing of  orders  from  the  office  to  the  shop,  the  purchasing 
of  materials,  the  marketing  of  products,  and  all  the  meth- 

®  It  is  not  intended,  of  course,  to  imply  that  no  other  factors 
or  considerations  enter  into  the  determination  of  such  matters, 
asid?  from  time  and  motion  study. 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  309' 

ods  of  accounting  will  likewise  be  subjected  to  time  and 
motion  study,  in  this  larger  sense,  with  a  view  to  discover- 
ing the  most  efficient  means  and  methods.  All  this  and 
much  more  is  time  and  motion  study  in  the  larger  con- 
ception of  the  term,  which  seems  to  be  sanctioned  by  pro- 
gressive scientific  managers.  And  not  until,  through  this 
broader  time  and  motion  study,  a  large  degree  of  im- 
provement and  standardization  of  the  general  productive 
process  has  been  well  advanced,  should  the  scientific 
manager,  according  to  these  experts,  enter  upon  time  and 
motion  study  in  the  narrower  sense,  i.e.,  putting  the  time- 
study  men,  with  stop-watches,  over  the  workmen  engaged 
in  a  particular  job  for  the  express  purpose  of  setting  tasks 
and  rates  of  wage  payment. 

Nor,  under  the  direction  of  this  really  scientific  man- 
ager, we  are  told,  will  this  part  of  the  time  and  motion 
study  correspond  to  the  conception  of  it  held  by  labor. 
On  the  contrary,  it  will  be  done  in  the  same  spirit  and 
with  the  same  care  that  we  have  noted  above.  It  will 
endeavor  to  discover  by  repeated  analysis  and  experi- 
mental timing  the  best  character,  combination,  and  ar- 
rangement of  tools,  materials,  machinery,  and  workmen, 
the  most  efficient  and  convenient  lighting,  heating,  and 
seating  arrangements  for  the  workmen,  the  proper  period 
for  continuous  operation  by  them,  considering  the  ele- 
ment of  fatigue,  the  rest  periods  needed,  their  most  effi- 
cient character,  combination,  and  sequence  of  motions, 
etc.  Moreover,  these  particular  job  experiments  will  not 
be  confined  to  one  man,  or  to  a  few  of  those  who  are  to 
accomplish  the  task.  Many  men  will  be  timed  with  the 
idea  of  discovering,  not  the  fastest  speed  of  the  fastest 
man,  but  the  normal  speed  which  the  group  can  con- 
tinuously maintain.    If  necessary,  hundreds  and  perhaps 


310  TRADE  UNIONISM 

thousands  of  time  and  motion  studies  will  be  made  to 
determine  this,  before  the  task  is  set  and  the  rate  estab- 
lished. And  whenever  a  new  or  better  method  or  com- 
bination has  been  discovered  by  the  time  and  motion 
analysis,  which  is  supposed  to  continue  even  after  the 
task  is  set,  the  whole  process  of  careful  and  extended 
timing  for  task  setting  will  be  repeated,  and  new  tasks 
and  rates  established  reasonably  conformable  to  the  new 
conditions. 

Finally,  as  an  Integral  part  of  this  broader  time  and 
motion  study,  all  the  results  secured  by  it  will  be  con- 
tinuously and  systematically  filed  as  a  permanent  asset 
and  guide  to  future  action. 

Thus  conceived,  time  and  motion  study  appears  to  be 
considered  a  method  of  analysis  applicable  to  practically 
every  feature  of  the  productive  and  distributive  process, 
considered  apart  from  its  purely  financial  aspects,  a  proc- 
ess of  analysis  applied  continuously  throughout  the  life 
of  the  establishment.  And  the  scientific  management 
based  upon  it  is  conceived  to  be  a  perpetual  attempt  to 
discover  and  put  into  operation  the  new  and  continuously 
developing  technical,  organic,  and  human  arrangements, 
methods,  and  relationships  constantly  revealed  by  it  to  be 
more  efficient  and  more  equitable.  That  this  broader 
conception  of  time  and  motion  study  as  the  essential  basis 
of  scientific  managements  exists,  not  as  a  mere  dream, 
but  as  a  practical  ideal  striven  for  with  the  confident  hope 
of  realization,  the  writer  can  attest  from  his  experiences 
in  the  best  class  of  scientific  management  shops. 

So  much  for  the  conception  of  scientific  management 
and  of  the  essential  means  or  methods  upon  which  are 
based  the  claims  put  forward  by  Mr.  Taylor  and  his  ad- 
herents and  imitators  relative  to  its  character  and  its 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  311 

effect  upon  the  welfare  of  labor.  Let  us  now  consider 
its  possible  and  actual  effects  upon  labor,  granting  the 
reality  of  this  broad  conception  of  time  and  motion 
study. 

It  is  evident  that  the  major  claims  of  scientific  man- 
agement relative  to  labor  are  closely  bound  up  with  the 
assumption  that  it  is  truly  scientific  in  its  dealings  with 
labor.  It  is  evident  also  that  this  assumption  cannot  be 
evaluated  and  judged  on  the  basis  of  the  fundamental 
postulates  of  scientific  management,  viz.,  that  produc- 
tive efficiency  and  just  distribution  of  the  product  are 
governed  by  natural  laws,  not  made  by  man,  and  unalter- 
able by  man,  and  that  a  fundamental  harmony  of  in- 
terests exists  between  employers  and  workmen.  These 
assumptions  might  be  true,  and  still  scientific  manage- 
ment would  not  be  scientific  in  practice  until  it  had  dis- 
covered and  based  itself  on  the  objective  facts  and  laws 
upon  which  these  assumptions  rest.  The  practical  ques- 
tion, then,  whether  scientific  management  is  actually 
scientific  becomes,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  the  ques- 
tion whether  it  has,  in  fact,  discovered  a  means  by  which 
all  productive  arrangements  and  processes  and  all  rela- 
tions between  employers  and  workers  can  be  reduced  to 
a  basis  of  exact  objective  fact  and  law,  a  means,  in  other 
words,  in  the  application  of  which  human  will,  judgment, 
and  cunning  cannot  and  will  not  enter  so  as  to  affect  the 
results,  and  which,  therefore,  will  necessarily  reveal  the 
truth  in  regard  to  the  most  effective  productive  arrange- 
ments and  methods,  the  kind  and  amount  of  work  which 
any  man  can  and  ought  to  do,  the  share  of  the  product 
individuals  ought  justly  to  receive  relatively  to  each  other, 
the  savings  effected,  and  prevailing  wages.  Time  and 
motion  study,  as  we  have  seen,  is  supposed  to  be  the 


312  TRADE  UNIONISM 

most  effective  means  to  these  ends.  Let  us  then  dis- 
cuss it  briefly  from  this  standpoint. 

In  considering  this  question,  we  must  carefully  distin- 
guish between  two  factors  or  elements  which  enter  into 
the  industrial  process,  the  mechanical  or  material,  and 
the  human. 

With  respect  to  the  first  of  these  elements,  the  claim 
of  scientific  management  seems  to  be  fairly  justified. 
Through  time  and  motion  study  in  its  broader  concep- 
tion, it  appears  to  be  possible  to  discover  and  to  estab- 
lish in  practice  the  objective  facts  and  laws  which  under- 
lie the  most  efficient  mechanical  arrangements,  processes, 
and  methods  of  production  in  the  shop. 

The  moment,  however,  that  the  conception  is  broadened 
and  the  human  factor  enters  into  the  situation,  and  the 
problem  becomes  one  of  setting  each  man  to  the  work  for 
which  he  is  best  fitted,  determining  how  much  work  any 
man  ought  to  do,  the  claims  of  scientific  management 
with  respect  to  time  and  motion  study,  and,  therefore, 
with  respect  to  the  character  and  effects  of  scientific  man- 
agement, do  not  seem  capable  of  practical  realization. 

Not  only  does  it  appear  that  the  fundamental  basis 
for  these  claims  is  lacking  in  the  absence  of  discovered 
laws  applying  to  such  matters,  but  careful  consideration 
shows  that  time  and  motion  study,  applied  to  the  deter- 
mination of  the  facts  in  this  connection,  is  not  capable 
of  yielding  objective  results,  uninfluenced  or  uninfluence- 
able  by  human  will  and  judgment.  On  the  contrary,  the 
methods  and  results  of  time  study  used  for  task  setting 
and  rate  making  are,  in  fact,  the  special  sport  of  indi- 
vidual judgment  and  opinion,  subject  to  all  the  possi- 
bilities of  diversity,  inaccuracy,  and  injustice  that  arise 
from  human  ignorance  and  prejudice. 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  313 

Fundamentally,  the  task  set  themselves  by  the  scien- 
tific managers  where  the  human  element  is  concerned 
seems  impossible  of  attainment,  at  least  in  the  present 
or  °n  the  near  future.  Psychologists  have,  perhaps,  de- 
veloped a  technique  to  determine  which  of  two  men  is 
better  able  at  a  given  time  to  perform  a  new  task,  but 
they  have  no  technique  as  yet  for  determining  which  of 
two  men  would  finally  become  the  better  worker  at  the 
task,  or  for  determining  in  what  task  any  man  would 
reach  his  greatest  development.  Moreover,  no  definite 
laws  have  been  discovered  which,  in  the  case  of  the  in- 
dividual worker,  can  be  applied  to  solve  the  problems 
of  fatigue  and  efficiency,  much  less  any  which  reveal  the 
long-time  effects  of  any  amount  of  work  upon  the 
worker. 

The  problem  of  relative  productiveness  and  just  dis- 
tribution is  still  farther  from  scientific  solution.  It  is 
possible,  by  time  and  motion  study,  to  determine  the  rela- 
tive productiveness  of  two  workers  engaged  in  the  same 
task,  provided  all  the  conditions  are  identical,  but  it  Is 
not  possible  thus  to  determine  the  relative  productiveness 
of  two  workers  engaged  in  different  lines  of  work  in- 
volving different  productive  elements.  Here  qualitative 
factors  enter  into  the  problem.  And  this  alone  makes 
evident  the  Impossibility  of  determining,  by  means  of 
time  and  motion  study,  the  relative  productivity  of  the 
capital,  the  managerial  factor,  and  the  labor,  which  to- 
gether turn  out  a  given  product ;  the  impossibility,  there- 
fore, of  determining,  by  time  and  motion  study,  the  law 
or  laws  of  the  just  distribution  of  the  product  among 
these  factors.  Here  the  qualitative  element  Is  supreme, 
and  the  problem  has  thus  far  baffled  human  ingenuity. 

But  even  in  the  effort  to  disclose  the  simple  objective 


314  TRADE  UNIONISM 

facts  of  human  productiveness,  uninfluenced  by  human 
will  and  judgment,  and  to  use  these  facts  as  a  basis  for 
fair  task  setting,  the  method  of  time  and  motion  study 
proves  on  careful  analysis  to  be  altogether  inadequate. 
Such  analysis  shows  that  at  a  score  of  points  in  this 
process  the  judgment  of  the  employer,  the  time-study 
man,  or  the  workers  may  be  and  is  exercised  so  as  to 
produce  variations  that  will  affect  and  alter  the  task  it- 
self. In  other  words,  the  time-study  process  includes 
a  score  of  factors  variable  with  the  judgment  and  will 
of  those  concerned,  variation  in  any  or  all  of  which  acts 
as  a  determinant  of  the  factual  results,  thus  belying  the 
claim  that  time  and  motion  study  is  a  method  by  which 
the  objective  scientific  facts  concerning  the  amount  of 
work  or  the  extent  of  the  task  which  any  man  or  any 
group  of  men  can  and  ought  to  perform  may  be  scien- 
tifically demonstrated,  if  by  this  is  meant  that  the  results 
thus  obtained  are  objective  scientific  data  unaffected  by 
human  will  and  judgment. 

Analysis  shows  that  among  the  factors  that  may  vary, 
subject  to  human  will,  and  that  thus  do  affect  the  results 
of  time  and  motion  study  used  for  task  setting,  are: 

1.  The  general  attitude,  ideals,  and  purposes  of  the 
management,  and  the  consequent  general  instructions 
given  to  the  time-study  man. 

2.  The  intelligence,  training,  and  ideals  of  the  time- 
study  man. 

3.  The  degree  to  which  the  job  to  be  timed  and  all 
its  appurtenances  have  been  studied  and  standardized, 
looking  to  uniform  conditions  in  its  performance  for  all 
the  workers. 

4.  The  amount  of  change  thus  made  from  old  methods 
and  conditions  of  performance,  e.g.,  the  order  of  per- 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  315 

formance,  the  motions  eliminated,  and  the  degree  of 
habituation  of  the  workers  to  the  old  and  the  new  situa- 
tion when  the  task  is  set. 

5.  The  mode  of  selection  of  the  workers  to  be  timed, 
and  their  speed  and  skill  relatively  to  the  other  members 
of  the  group. 

6.  The  relative  number  of  workers  timed,  and  the 
number  of  readings  considered  sufficient  to  secure  the  re- 
sults desired. 

7.  The  atmospheric  conditions,  the  time  of  day,  the 
time  of  year,  the  mental  and  physical  conditions  of  the 
workers  when  timed,  and  the  judgment  exercised  in 
reducing  these  matters  to  the  "normal." 

8.  The  character  and  amount  of  special  instruction 
and  special  training  given  the  selected  workers  before 
timing  them. 

9.  The  instructions  given  to  them  by  the  time-study 
man  as  to  the  care,  speed,  etc.,  to  be  maintained  during 
the  timing  process. 

10.  The  attitude  of  the  time-study  man  toward  the 
workers  being  timed,  and  the  secret  motives  and  aims  of 
the  workers  themselves. 

11.  The  judgment  of  the  time-study  man  as  to  the 
pace  maintained  under  timing  relatively  to  the  "proper," 
"normal,"  or  maximum  speed  which  should  be  demanded. 

12.  The  checks  on  the  actual  results  used  by  the  time- 
study  man  in  this  connection. 

13.  The  method  and  mechanism  used  for  observing 
and  recording  times,  and  the  degree  of  accuracy  with 
which  actual  results  are  caught  and  put  down. 

14.  The  judgment  exercised  by  the  time-study  man  in 
respect  to  the  retention  or  elimination  of  possible  inac- 
curate or  "abnormally"  high  or  low  readings. 


3i6  TRADE  UNIONISM 

15.  The  method  used  In  summing  up  the  elementary 
readings  to  get  the  "necessary"  elementary  time. 

16.  The  method  employed  in  determining  how  much 
should  be  added  to  the  "necessary  time"  as  a  human  al- 
lowance. 

17.  The  method  of  determining  the  "machine  allow- 
ance." 

That  the  factors  thus  enumerated  are  not  constant  in 
practice,  and  that  the  tasks  thus  set  by  time  and  motion 
study  have  no  necessary  scientific  relation  to  what  the 
members  of  a  working  group  can  or  ought  to  accomplish, 
but  are  dependent  chiefly  upon  the  judgment  of  the  time- 
study  man,  I  can  positively  affirm  as  the  result  of  many 
careful  observations  of  time  studies  for  task  setting  made 
In  scientific  management  shops,  and  much  analysis  and 
discussion  of  results  with  scientific  managers  and  time- 
study  men.  Especially  is  this  true  of  the  mode  of  se- 
lecting the  workers  to  be  timed,  and  their  speed  and  skill 
relatively  to  the  workers  of  a  group,  and  of  the  methods 
of  summing  up  the  elementary  readings  to  get  the  neces- 
sary elementary  time.  In  these  vital  matters  there  are 
no  generally  observed  rules,  but  each  shop  is  likely  to 
be  a  law  unto  itself.  Nor  does  consistency  prevail  In 
the  same  shop,  the  result  being  that  the  task  set  may,  and 
sometimes  does,  mean  anything  from  the  output  of  the 
"swift"  to  a  "fat  job"  even  for  the  plodder. 

Such  being  the  facts,  however  scientific  scientific  man- 
agement may  be  in  its  technical  and  mechanical  aspects, 
it  is  little  less  than  absurd  to  speak  of  It  as  scientific  out- 
side of  these  spheres.  It  is  not,  and  apparently  cannot 
be,  scientific  in  task  setting.  Indeed,  under  the  general 
circumstances  which  prevail  In  industry,  the  very  con- 
ception of  a  single  task  set  for  a  whole  group  of  work- 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  317 

ers  or  of  an  invariable  task  for  an  individual  to  be  ac- 
complished from  hour  to  hour  and  day  to  day  is  unscien- 
tific, looked  at  from  the  standpoint  of  adapting  the  work 
to  the  individual  capacities  of  the  workers,  or  from  that 
of  strict  justice.  Nor,  if  our  analysis  has  been  correct, 
can  scientific  management  be  scientific  in  the  matter  of 
rate  making,  the  distribution  of  the  product,  or,  in  fact, 
in  any  of  its  dealings  with  the  human  element.  Its 
claims,  therefore,  relative  to  the  discovery  of  objective 
scientific  facts  where  working  relations  are  concerned, 
which  are  not  proper  subjects  for  bargaining,  and  rela- 
tive to  the  discovery  and  establishment  of  natural  laws 
governing  all  the  dealings  of  employers  and  workers, 
which  cannot  be  violated  or  which  insure  justice  in  effort 
demanded  and  in  wage  payment,  seem  to  have  no  legiti- 
mate foundation. 

As  the  result  of  the  lack  of  a  scientific  basis  for  scien- 
tific management  and  of  anything  in  the  system  itself  ca- 
pable of  preventing  violation  of  its  own  standards,  in 
matters  which  concern  human  conditions  and  relations, 
we  find  that  in  actual  practice  the  relations  of  scientific 
management  to  the  workers  are,  in  the  main,  as  else- 
where in  industry,  determined  by  the  ideals  and  intel- 
ligence of  the  particular  management,  the  exigencies  of 
the  particular  shop,  and  the  general  industrial  situation. 
No  safe  generalizations  can,  therefore,  be  made  in  re- 
gard to  most  of  its  dealings  with  the  workers.  Some  of 
the  managers  are  high-minded  and  intelligent,  and  their 
immediate  relations  to  their  workers  are  marked  by  liber- 
ality and  fair  dealing.  Others  are  just  ordinary,  morally 
and  intellectually,  with  the  results  that  might  thus  be 
expected.  It  is  not  impossible  to  find  men  calling  them- 
selves scientific  managers,  and  assuming  to  put  into  oper- 


3i8  TRADE  UNIONISM 

ation  the  Taylor,  Gantt,  or  Emerson  systems,  whose 
sole  or  main  intent  seems  to  be  to  use  scientific  manage- 
ment methods  to  get  as  much  as  possible  from,  and  to 
give  as  little  as  possible  to,  the  workers.  The  move- 
ment is  still  in  its  infancy,  and,  in  some  respects,  is,  at 
best,  still  crude  and  inadequate  in  its  dealings  with  the 
men.  There  is  no  doubt  that  adherence  to  Mr.  Taylor's 
ideal  of  the  strict  maintenance  of  standard  conditions  of 
work  and  pay,  as  long  as  the  efficiency  conditions  are 
not  altered,  marks  a  distinct  advance  in  the  interests  of 
labor  over  the  ideals  which  have  been  wont  to  govern 
the  relations  of  employers  to  unorganized  labor.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  an  unfortunate  fact  that  scientific 
management  at  the  present  time  is  desperately  fake-rid- 
den, and  where  the  fakirs — experts  or  managers — are  in 
the  saddle,  the  results  justify  every  charge  that  the  work- 
ers hurl  against  the  movement.  Thus,  in  actual  practice, 
scientific  management  varies  from  good,  fair,  and  liberal 
through  every  gradation  to  bad  and  positively  oppressive, 
in  its  methods  and  results,  with  respect  to  the  selection 
and  hiring  of  workmen,  the  adaptation,  instruction,  and 
training  of  workers,  time  study  and  task  setting,  rate 
making,  modes  of  payment  and  maintenance  of  rates, 
protection  of  workers  from  overspeeding  and  exhaus- 
tion, opportunities  offered  for  advancement  and  promo- 
tion, modes  of  discipline,  methods  of  discharge,  length 
of  service,  etc. 

There  are,  however,  at  least  three  matters  of  vital 
general  concern  to  the  workers  and  society  with  respect 
to  which  safe  generalizations  with  regard  to  scientific 
management  seem  to  be  possible. 

First,  scientific  management  has  in  it  possibilities  of 
enormous  increase  of  productive  efficiency.    In  time  and 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  319 

motion  study,  broadly  conceived,  it  has  apparently  dis- 
covered a  means  such  as  we  have  never  before  had  for 
the  systematic,  continuous,  and  indefinite  improvement  of 
productive  processes  and  methods.  Moreover,  if  prop- 
erly guarded  and  guided,  this  method  may  be  used  very 
effectively  without  entailing  any  evil  results  to  the  work- 
ers in  the  way  of  overspeeding  and  exhaustion.  Scien- 
tific management,  therefore,  not  only  holds  out  possi- 
bilities of  substantial  benefits  to  labor,  but  it  points  the 
way  toward  raising  the  standard  of  living  of  all  classes 
of  labor  and  of  society  at  large.  No  one  who  has  grasped 
the  import  of  the  analysis  which  I  have  tried  to  give  of 
time  and  motion  study  in  its  broader  conception  can,  for 
a  moment,  doubt  this  statement. 

Secondly,  scientific  management,  as  it  actually  exists, 
is,  in  spirit  and  results,  undemocratic  in  so  far  as  we  asso- 
ciate industrial  democracy  with  labor  organization  and 
collective  bargaining.  It  generally  tends  to  weaken  the 
competitive  power  of  the  individual  worker,  thwarts  the 
formation  of  shop  groups,  and  weakens  the  solidarity  of 
those  which  exist.  It  is  generally  lacking  in  the  arrange- 
ments and  machinery,  which,  considering  the  workers' 
experience  and  psychology,  seem  to  be  necessary  for  the 
actual  voicing  of  their  complaints,  and  for  the  considera- 
tion and  adjustment  of  their  grievances,  except  as  in- 
dividuals. Collective  bargaining  has  ordinarily  no  place 
in  the  determination  of  matters  considered  by  organized 
labor  to  be  vital,  and  the  attitude  toward  collective  bar- 
gaining is  usually  tolerant  only  when  it  is  not  under- 
stood. Unionism,  where  it  means  a  vigorous  attempt  to 
enforce  the  viewpoint  and  claims  of  the  workers,  is  gen- 
erally looked  upon  with  abhorrence.  A  few  of  the  ad- 
herents of  scientific  management  are  democratic  in  spirit 


320  TRADE  UNIONISM 

and  purpose.  Some  think  themselves  democratic,  but 
analysis  of  their  ideals  and  attitudes  shows  them  to  be 
in  reality  adherents  of  a  benevolent  industrial  despotism. 
More  are  definitely  committed  to  an  autocratic  attitude. 
But,  whatever  the  spirit  of  the  management,  scientific 
management,  in  practice,  by  virtue  of  its  most  essential 
and  characteristic  feature,  time  and  motion  study,  tends, 
apparently  inevitably,  to  the  elimination  of  what  are 
considered  by  the  organized  workers  as  democratic  ar- 
rangements and  possibilities.  The  cogent  reasons  for 
this  conclusion  will  appear  immediately. 

Finally,  scientific  management,  in  its  essential  nature 
and  unsupplemented,  seems  to  be  a  force  tending  to  re- 
duce the  great  body  of  workers  to  a  little-skilled,  prac- 
tically interchangeable  and  unorganized  mass,  with  all 
this  implies  with  respect  to  possible  insecurity  and  dis- 
continuity of  employment,  wage  leveling,  and  the  mental 
and  moral  quality  of  the  workers.^ 

Scientific  management,  at  its  best,  furthers  the  mod- 
ern tendency  toward  the  specialization  of  the  workers. 
Its  most  characteristic  features — functional  foremanship, 
time  and  motion  study,  task  setting,  and  efficiency  pay- 
ments— all  have  this  inherent  effect. 

Functional  foremanship  means  that  the  worker  is  to 
have  taken  from  him  much  that  he  formerly  had  to  per- 
form in  connection  with  the  particular  task.  It  projects 
the  managerial  activity  down  into  every  phase  of  shop- 
work.  As  Mr.  Taylor  says,  it  effects  a  more  equal  divi- 
sion  of   the   work   between    the   management   and   the 

®  I  cannot  indicate  this  more  clearly  than  by  reproducing  in 
condensed  form  the  discussion  of  this  subject  embodied  in  the 
report  on  scientific  management  and  labor  made  to  the  United 
States  Commission  of  Industrial  Relations. 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  321 

men  by  taking  from  the  latter  much  of  the  work  which 
they  were  formerly  obliged  to  perform.  Under  scien- 
tific management,  as  fully  developed,  the  machine  hand 
is  intended  to  be,  and  is,  in  fact,  a  machine  feeder  and  a 
machine  feeder  only,  with  the  possibility  of  auxiliary 
operations  clearly  cut  off;  and  what  applies  to  the  ma- 
chine feeder  applies  with  more  or  less  thoroughness  to 
machine  and  hand  operatives  generally. 

But  it  is  not  merely  in  sweeping  from  the  job  its 
auxiliary  operations  that  scientific  management  tends  to 
specialize  the  work  and  the  workers.  Time  and  motion 
study,  the  chief  cornerstone  of  all  systems  of  scientific 
management,  tends  inherently  to  the  narrowing  of  the 
job  or  task  itself.  The  chief  function  of  time  and  mo- 
tion study,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  analysis  of  work,  the 
reduction  of  operations  to  their  elementary  motions  and 
units,  and  the  recombination  of  these  elements  into  oper- 
ations more  quickly  and  easily  performed.  Its  preponder- 
ating tendency  is  to  split  up  the  work  into  smaller  and 
simpler  operations  or  tasks,  and  to  further  the  invention 
of  new  machinery  of  a  more  automatic  type,  and  of 
machinery  for  the  performance  of  former  hand  opera- 
tions. 

With  functional  foremanship  lopping  off  from  the  job 
the  auxiliary  operations,  and  time  and  motion  study  tend- 
ing to  the  narrowing  of  the  task  itself,  task  setting  and 
efficiency  methods  of  payment  come  into  play  as  forces 
tending  to  confine  the  worker  to  a  single  task  or  narrow 
range  of  operations.  The  worker  is  put  upon  the  special 
task  for  which  he  seems  best  adapted,  and  he  is  stimu- 
lated by  the  methods  of  payment  employed  to  make 
himself  as  proficient  as  possible  at  it.  When  he  suc- 
ceeds in  this,  to  shift  him  to  another  task  ordinarily  in- 


2,22  TRADE  UNIONISM 

volves  an  immediate  and  distinct  loss  to  the  employer 
and  to  the  workman  himself. 

This  inherent  tendency  to  specialize  is  buttressed, 
broadened  in  its  scope,  and  perpetuated  by  the  progressive 
gathering  up  and  systematizing,  in  the  hands  of  the  em- 
ployers, of  all  the  traditional  craft  knowledge  in  the 
possession  of  the  workers.  With  this  information  in 
hand,  and  functional  foremanship  to  direct  its  use,  scien- 
tific management  claims  to  have  no  need  of  craftsmen 
in  the  old  sense  of  the  term,  and,  therefore,  no  need  for 
an  apprenticeship  system,  except  for  the  training  of 
functional  foremen.  It  therefore  tends  to  neglect  ap- 
prenticeship except  for  the  training  of  the  few. 

But  scientific  management  is  not  only  inherently  spe- 
cializing, it  also  tends  to  break  down  existing  standards 
and  uniformities  set  up  by  the  workmen,  and  to  prevent 
the  establishment  of  stable  conditions  of  work  and  pay. 
Time  and  motion  study  means  constant  and  endless 
change  in  the  methods  of  operation.  No  sooner  is  a 
new  and  better  method  discovered  and  established,  and 
the  conditions  of  work  and  pay  adapted  to  it,  than  an 
improvement  is  discovered,  involving,  perhaps,  new  ma- 
chinery, new  tools  and  materials,  a  new  way  of  doing 
things,  and  a  consequent  alteration  of  the  conditions  of 
work  and  pay,  with  perhaps  a  complete  reclassification  of 
the  workers.  Change  and  more  change  is  the  special 
purpose  and  mission  of  this  essential  instrument  and 
central,  feature  of  scientific  management. 

Certain  conclusions  inevitably  follow.  Scientific  man- 
agement, fully  and  properly  applied,  tends  to  the  constant 
breakdown  of  the  established  crafts  and  craftsmanship, 
and  the  constant  elimination  of  skill  in  the  sense  of  nar- 
rowing craft  knowledge  and  workmanship,  except  pos- 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  323 

sibly  for  some  members  of  the  managerial  staff  and 
the  lower  orders  of  workmen. 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  progressive  degenera- 
tion of  craftsmanship  and  the  progressive  degradation  of 
skilled  craftsmen,  under  scientific  management,  would 
seem  inevitable,  unless  some  means  can  be  found  for 
their  preservation  and  development  outside  the  shop. 

What  this  means  in  increased  competition  of  workman 
with  workman  can  be  imagined.  Were  the  scientific  man- 
agement ideal,  as  at  present  formulated,  fully  realized, 
any  man  who  walks  the  street  might  be  a  practical  com- 
petitor for  almost  any  workman's  job.  Such  a  situa- 
tion would  inevitably  break  down  the  basis  of  present- 
day  unionism  in  its  dominant  form,  and  render  collective 
bargaining,  as  now  practiced,  impossible  in  any  effective 
sense  in  regard  to  the  matters  considered  by  the  unions 
as  most  essential. 

Granting  the  correctness  of  this  interpretation,  the 
more  ultimate  effects  of  scientific  management,  should  it 
become  universal,  upon  wages  and  employment  are  mat- 
ters of  pure  speculation.  It  is  apparent,  however,  that  the 
highly  trained  workers  cannot  hope  to  maintain  their 
wage  advantage  over  the  semi-skilled  and  less  skilled 
workers.  The  tendency  will  be  toward  a  realignment  of 
wage  rates.  Whether  this  leveling  will  be  up  or  down, 
it  is  impossible  to  say.  At  present,  the  writer  believes 
that  scientific  management  is  making  the  relatively  un- 
skilled more  efficient  than  ever  before,  and  that  they  are 
generally  receiving  under  it  greater  earnings  than  ever 
before.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  the  native  efficiency 
of  the  working  class  must  suffer  from  the  neglect  of 
apprenticeship  if  no  other  means  of  industrial  educa- 
tion is  forthcoming. 


324  TRADE  UNIONISM 

If  generally  increased  efficiency  is  the  result  of  scien- 
tific management,  uneniployment  would,  in  the  end,  seem 
to  become  less  of  a  menace.  But  during  the  period  of 
transition  we  should  expect  its  increase.  Moreover,  the 
whole  scheme  of  scientific  management,  especially  the 
gathering  up  and  systematizing  of  the  knowledge,  which 
was  formerly  the  possession  of  the  workers,  tends  enor- 
mously to  add  to  the  strength  of  capitalism.  This  fact, 
together  with  the  greater  ease  of  replacement,  must  make 
the  security  and  continuity  of  employment  inherently 
more  uncertain. 

Scientific  management,  then,  like  the  progressive  in- 
vention of  machinery,  seems  to  be  a  force  urging  us  for- 
ward toward  an  era  of  specialized  workmanship  and  gen- 
erally semi-skilled  or  less  skilled  workmen.  Here  we 
glimpse  the  great  problem  with  which  its  spread  and  de- 
velopment confront  labor  and  society.  What,  then,  is 
the  solution  of  the  problem  thus  presented? 

I  cannot  believe  that  it  lies  in  repressive  measures. 
We  surely  cannot  afiford  to  give  up  the  vast  possibilities 
of  increased  productiveness  which  scientific  management 
holds  out.  On  the  contrary,  "our  industries  should 
adopt,"  and  should  be  encouraged  to  adopt,  "all  methods 
which  replace  inaccuracy  by  accurate  knowledge,  and 
which  systematically  operate  to  improve  productive 
methods  and  eliminate  economic  waste."  The  remedy, 
then,  is  not  repression,  but  supplementation. 

The  need  is  a  method  by  which  the  intellectual  and 
moral  content  which  the  worker  is  losing  through  the 
destruction  of  his  craft  training  and  the  loss  of  his  craft 
knowledge  can  be  restored  to  him.  How  can  we  secure 
this?  It  will  not  do,  I  take  it,  to  demand  this  of  scien- 
tific management.     To  attempt  to  limit   specialization 


SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT  325 

and  restore  the  old  apprenticeship  system  in  the  shop 
would  mean  to  prevent  to  a  large  degree  the  productive 
effectiveness  and  the  productive  improvements  which 
we  cannot  afford  to  forego.  Moreover,  to  require  that 
scientific  managers  themselves  maintain  training  schools 
for  all  their  workers,  effective  in  a  social  sense,  would 
severely  penalize  and  handicap,  if  it  did  not  eliminate, 
the  system. 

Nor  do  we  wish  the  training  of  the  workers  to  be  cen- 
tered In  the  hands  and  under  the  control  solely  of  the 
employers.  It  seems  that  what  we  really  need,  as  a 
supplement  to  scientific  management — so  that  we  may 
avail  ourselves  of  its  beneficial  possibilities  and  eliminate 
or  minimize  its  possible  evil  effects — is  an  adequate  sys- 
tem of  industrial  education,  socially  launched  and  socially 
controlled — an  Integral  part  of  our  public  school  sys- 
tem. With  such  a  system  in  vogue,  we  might  hope,  I 
believe,  that  what  the  workers  lose  intellectually  and 
morally  in  the  shop,  under  modem  specialized  work- 
manship, they  would  gain  In  the  school,  and  that  through 
this  moral  and  Intellectual  gain  they  might  become  uni- 
versally organizable  and  organized,  and  might  develop 
policies  and  methods  which,  while  not  Interfering  with 
productive  efficiency,  would  secure  for  them  as  a  class 
improved  conditions  and  a  reasonable  share  in  the  in- 
creased social  dividend  which  the  development  and 
spread  of  scientific  management  promise. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

WHY  ORGANIZED  LABOR  OPPOSES  SCIENTIFIC 
MANAGEMENT 

The  various  systems  commonly  included  under  the 
general  term  "scientific  management"  differ  specifically 
in  many  respects,  but  they  all  have  in  common  certain 
purposes  and  methods  which  constitute  the  basis  of  or- 
ganized labor's  opposition. 

Theoretically,  scientific  management  is  an  attempt 
through  accurate  industrial  analysis  to  discover  and 
put  into  operation  the  objective  facts  and  laws  which 
underlie  true  ef^ciency  in  production.  In  its  broadest 
and  best  application  it  attempts  through  this  process  of 
analysis  to  determine  the  best  location  and  structure  of 
the  shop  for  the  particular  manufacture  designed;  the 
most  efficient  processes  and  methods  of  production  in 
general  and  in  detail ;  the  material,  organic  and  human 
arrangements  and  relationships  best  suited  to  further  the 
productive  process ;  the  most  effective  character,  arrange- 
ment and  uses  of  the  machinery,  tools  and  materials  em- 
ployed; the  methods  of  selection  and  training  of  the 
workmen  and  managerial  force  most  conducive  to  effi- 
ciency; the  character  and  amount  of  work  which  can 
and  ought  to  be  performed  by  each  member  of  the  labor 
and  managerial  force;  the  payment  to  be  accorded  each 
individual  in  the  interests  of  efficiency  and  justice;  and 

326 


LABOR  AND  SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT     :^^7 

in  general  it  aims  to  discover  all  the  material,  organic 
and  human  qualities,  arrangements  and  relationships 
which  will  result  in  greatest  output  and  lowest  cost. 

The  principal  and  distinctive  device  by  which  scientific 
management  attempts  thus  to  discover  and  put  into  oper- 
ation the  objective  facts  and  laws  of  industrial  efficiency 
is  time  and  motion  study. 

It  is  the  use  of  time  and  motion  study,  not  only  for 
task  setting  but  for  the  improvement  and  standardiza- 
tion of  all  the  mechanical  and  organic  features  and  ar- 
rangements of  the  productive  concern,  that  chiefly  dis- 
tinguishes scientific  management  from  all  previous  sys- 
tems of  production.  Through  the  use  of  time  and 
motion  study  and  the  modes  of  payment  which  it  has 
devised,  it  has  been  claimed  that  scientific  management 
not  only  increases  efficiency  and  lowers  costs,  but  does 
larger  and  more  difficult  things.  We  are  told  that  it 
substitutes  in  the  shop  the  government  of  fact  and  law 
for  the  rule  of  force  and  opinion,  i,  e.,  substitutes  the 
democracy  of  science  for  the  autocratic  rule  of  employ- 
ers or  workmen,  and  removes  the  rough,  arbitrary  and 
often  unjust  discipline  of  foremen  and  superintendents; 
assigns  to  each  worker  the  task  for  which  he  is  best 
fitted ;  trains  the  workers  in  the  best  and  easiest  methods 
of  work;  protects  them  from  over-exertion  and  exhaus- 
tion; safeguards  them  against  arbitrary  discharge,  and 
lengthens  their  term  of  service ;  raises  wages ;  eliminates 
arbitrary  rate-cutting,  and  affords  increased  opportuni- 
ties for  advancement  and  promotion ;  and,  finally,  renders 
unnecessary  trade  unionism  and  collective  bargaining  as 
a  means  of  protection  to  the  workmen. 

Such  in  briefest  outline  is  the  essential  character  of 
scientific  management  and  such  are  the  essential  claims 


328  TRADE  UNIONISM 

made  for  it.  Why  then  does  organized  labor  stand  in 
definite  and  uncompromising  opposition  to  it? 

There  are  more  than  a  hundred  specific  reasons  al- 
leged by  the  representatives  of  organized  labor  to  account 
for  their  determined  opposition  to  scientific  management, 
and,  doubtless,  there  are  many  other  points  of  opposi- 
tion which  are  not  openly  proclaimed.  In  my  study  last 
year,^  I  attempted  to  gather  up  these  scattered  allega- 
tions and  reduce  them  to  some  sort  of  system.  Thus 
classified  and  generalized  to  the  nth  degree,  they  com- 
prehend the  following  main  points : 

Scientific  management,  say  the  union  representatives, 
is  a  device  employed  for  the  purpose  of  increasing  pro- 
duction and  profits,  which  concerns  itself  almost  wholly 
with  the  problem  of  production,  disregarding  in  general 
*^  the  vital  problem  of  distribution.  As  such  it  is  a  rever- 
sion to  industrial  autocracy  which  forces  the  workers  to 
depend  upon  the  employers'  conception  of  fairness  and 
limits  the  democratic  safeguards  of  the  workers.  It  is 
unscientific  and  unfair  in  the  setting  of  the  task  and  in 
the  fixing  of  wage  rates;  in  spirit  and  essence  it  is  a 
cunningly  devised  speeding-up  and  sweating  system ;  it 
intensifies  the  modern  tendency  toward  specialization  of 
the  work  and  the  task;  it  condemns  the  worker  to  a 
monotonous  routine  and  tends  to  deprive  him  of  thought, 
initiative  and  joy  in  his  work  and  to  destroy  his  indi- 
viduality and  inventive  genius;  it  lessens  the  continuity 
and  certainty  of  employment,  and  leads  to  over-produc- 
tion and  unemployment;  it  is  incompatible  with,  and 
destructive  of,  collective  bargaining  and  trade  unionism. 

Belief  in  these  charges,  in  whole  or  in  part,  which  I 
found  on  further  investigation  was  general  among  or- 

^  See  Hoxie,  Scientific  Management  and  Labor  (1915). 


LABOR  AND  SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT    329 

ganized  laborers,  is  sufficient  to  account  superficially  and 
immediately  for  the  determined  opposition  of  unions  and 
union  men  to  the  introduction  and  operation  of  scientific 
management.  Yet  the  statement  of  these  objections 
does  not  furnish  any  very  real  or  significant  answer 
to  the  question,  why  organized  labor  opposes  scientific 
management.  It  gives  answer  in  terms  of  belief  only. 
It  gives  no  clue  to  the  causes  of  this  belief,  and,  there- 
fore, none  to  the  real  nature  of  the  opposition — to  the 
forces  which  have  created  the  opposition,  and  hence  its 
strength  and  significance.  In  short,  this  statement  of 
belief  does  not  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter  and  en- 
lighten us  in  regard  to  the  fundamental  question.  In 
order  to  do  this,  we  must  dig  below  the  surface  and  find 
the  basic  or  ultimate  reasons  for  these  expressed  beliefs. 
During  my  work  of  investigation  last  year  several  sug- 
gestions were  brought  forward  both  by  opponents  and 
advocates  of  scientific  management  to  account  in  general 
and  causal  terms  for  the  attitude  and  belief  of  organized 
labor  which  I  have  tried  to  summarize  above.  It  was 
suggested  that  the  opposition  was  ascribable  to  various 
causes,  (i)  To  general  ignorance  on  the  part  of  the 
union  workers  of  the  true  nature,  methods,  and  results 
of  scientific  management.  (2)  To  general  and  funda- 
mental distrust,  which  the  workers  have  acquired  from 
bitter  experience,  of  anything  new  or  different  in  indus- 
trial organization  and  methods.  (3)  To  a  propaganda 
of  opposition  among  the  rank  and  file  of  union  men, 
conducted  by  the  leaders,  who  fear  that  if  a  better  under- 
standing is  allowed  to  grow  up  between  the  real  work- 
ers and  the  employers,  their  prestige  and  emoluments 
will  be  decreased,  and  even  perhaps  their  positions  abol- 
ished and  they  be  reduced  again  to  the  ranks.     (4)  To 


33d  TRADE  UNIONISM 

the  crudities  of  scientific  management,  still  in  its  begin- 
nings, and  to  the  many  abuses  of  it  in  practice  by  char- 
latans and  by  ignorant  and  unscrupulous  employers,  who 
trade  upon  the  name  without  understanding  the  intricate 
and  delicate  nature  of  the  thing,  the  time  and  patience 
necessary  for  its  development,  or  who  deliberately  violate 
its  spirit  and  methods  for  labor  driving  purposes.  (5) 
To  present  dominant  ideals  of  trade  unionism  which  are 
incompatible  with  those  of  scientific  management  as  con- 
ceived by  Mr.  Taylor,  a  suggestion  made  by  Mr.  Taylor 
himself,  who  said :  "Scientific  management  rests  upon 
the  fundamental  assumption  that  a  harmony  of  interests 
exists  between  employers  and  workmen.  It  is  therefore 
organized  for  peace,  while  trade  unionism  is  organized 
for  war.  .  .  .  Scientific  management  rests  upon  the  as- 
sumption that  the  welfare  of  all  demands  ever  increased 
efficiency  and  output :  trade  unionism  is  committed  to  the 
limitation  of  output." 

Doubtless  each  of  these  suggestions  has  some  validity, 
but  none  of  them  nor  all  of  them  together  seem  sufficient 
to  account  for  the  general  and  determined  opposition  of 
the  unions.  Moreover,  some  of  them,  while  perhaps  not 
jx)sitive  misstatements,  are  3^et  misleading  in  their  impli- 
cations. Let  us  then  consider  each  of  them  briefly  on  its 
merits  and  through  this  try  to.  arrive  at  the  essential 
meaning  of  the  union  attitude  toward  scientific  manage- 
ment. 

( I )  It  is  true  that  there  has  been  and  is  now  a  great 
lack  of  adequate  knowledge  of  the  true  nature,  methods 
and  results  of  scientific  management  as  a  whole  on  the 
part  of  the  great  mass  of  organized  workers,  both  the 
leaders  and  the  rank  and  file.  But  it  is  equally  true  that 
increase  of  knowledge,  which  is  going  forward  steadily, 


LABOR  AND  SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENt    33! 

does  not  result  in  any  abatement  of  union  opposition. 
Here  and  there,  individual  members  of  unions  or  small 
groups  of  union  workers  who  are  brought  into  actual 
contact  with  efficiency  methods  in  the  shop  do  become 
reconciled  to  scientific  management  and  are  sometimes 
even  enthusiastic  advocates  of  it.  But  the  significant 
thing  to  note  here  is  that  these  same  men  generally  cease 
to  be  "good  unionists"  in  spirit,  even  if  they  do  not 
drop  their  union  affiliation  altogether  and  become  its  op- 
ponents. The  increased  knowledge  which  leading  union- 
ists have  recently  gained  of  scientific  management,  in 
theory  and  in  practice,  has  intensified  rather  than  les- 
sened their  opposition  and  that  of  the  union  movement 
in  general. 

(2)  There  is  no  doubt  that  general  and  almost  in- 
stinctive distrust  of  the  new,  strange  and  different  has 
played  a  part  in  rousing  union  opposition  and  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  is  effective  in  continuing  it.  It  has  been 
ground  into  the  consciousness  of  laborers  by  long  and 
bitter  experience  that  industrial  change  through  inven- 
tion and  the  application  of  new  machinery  and  processes, 
however  beneficial  it  is  to  society  as  a  whole  and  even  to 
labor  in  the  long  run,  usually  results  in  taking  toll  im- 
mediately from  the  individual  worker  or  the  working 
group  concerned.  It  leads  to  displacement  or  lessened 
security  of  employment,  often  in  lower  wage  rates  and 
long  hours,  through  the  increased  competition  of  lower 
grades  of  workmen  and  the  lower  cost  and  prices  of  the 
products  affected.  The  history  of  industrial  develop- 
ment is  full  of  incidents  of  this  kind,  and  no  better  ex- 
ample can  be  found  than  the  case  of  the  English  weavers 
and  spinners  which  Mr.  Taylor  was  so  fond  of  citing. 
For  more  than  a  generation  after  the  application  of  the , 


33^  TRADE  UNIONISM 

great  inventions  which  revolutionized  the  cotton  manu- 
facturing industry  in  England,  the  competition  of  women 
and  children  operated  to  displace  the  men,  to  lower 
wages,  and  to  lengthen  hours,  to  such  an  extent  that  this 
industry  as  it  then  existed  has  become  the  classical  exam- 
ple of  modern  labor  oppression  and  degradation.  The 
world,  and  even  labor,  ultimately  gained ;  but  meanwhile 
the  workman  concerned,  the  head  of  the  family,  sat  at 
home,  swept  the  house,  cooked  and  darned,  while  his 
wife  and  children,  down  even  to  the  age  of  five  years, 
worked  in  the  factory  from  four  and  five  o'clock  in  the 
morning  till  seven  and  eight  o'clock  at  night,  under  the 
most  insanitary  and  unsafe  conditions,  often  treated  with 
unheard-of  brutality,  and  for  an  aggregate  wage  that 
scarcely  sufficed  for  the  food,  clothing  and  shelter  neces- 
sary to  keep  body  and  soul  together.  And  what  was 
true  of  the  English  cotton  industry  has  tended  to  be  true 
in  a  lesser  degree  of  industrial  changes  generally.  The 
workmen  immediately  concerned  have  tended  to  be  pe- 
nalized that  society  might  reap  the  advantages  of  indus- 
trial progress.  What  wonder  then  that  they  have  come 
instinctively  to  dread  change  of  any  kind  that  immedi- 
ately affects  their  work  and  to  oppose  such  change  unless 
it  is  accompanied  by  positive  guarantees  that  they  shall 
immediately  share  in  the  social  gains,  or,  at  least,  suffer 
no  loss  of  employment  and  no  derogation  of  their  stand- 
ards of  work  and  wages  as  the  result  of  the  improve- 
ments? And  surely  we  can  hardly  expect  the  workman 
with  a  dependent  family  and  no  savings  ahead  to  wel- 
come innovations  that  threaten  to  render  less  valuable  his 
acquired  skill,  to  throw  him  even  temporarily  out  of  em- 
ployment, or  to  transfer  him  to  employment  which  com- 
mands a  lower  wage  rate,  simply  because  these  changes 


LABOR  AND  SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT    333 

will  redound  ultimately  to  the  benefit  of  society,  to  labor 
as  a  whole,  or  even  in  the  long  run  to  his  own  advantage, 
when  a  month  of  unemployment,  two  weeks  even,  may 
bring  him  and  his  to  the  verge  of  want,  while  a  few 
months  or  years  of  employment  at  a  lower  wage  level 
may  mean  the  wrecking  of  all  his  hopes  for  a  home,  for 
the  education  of  his  children,  for  provision  against  sick- 
ness and  old  age,  or  may  mean  even  the  break-up  and 
scattering  of  his  family. 

(3)  That  trade  union  officers  and  leaders  have  of  late 
carried  on  a  persistent  and  ever  increasing  propaganda 
against  scientific  management  cannot  be  gainsaid.  Stray 
sentences  from  Mr.  Taylor's  works  which  could  be  in- 
terpreted as  inimical  to  the  workers  and  their  welfare, 
and  particular  instances  of  abuses  and  perversions  of 
scientific  management,  have  been  dramatically  presented 
to  the  rank  and  file  of  unionism  as  indicative  of  the  gen- 
eral character  and  results  of  the  system,  much  in  the 
same  spirit  as  texts  from  the  Bible  were  formerly  used 
by  the  clergy  to  warn  the  unconverted  of  the  dangers  of 
hell  fire.  The  motives  which  underlie  this  propa- 
gandistic  work  I  need  not  attempt  to  interpret.  What- 
ever the  motive,  the  effect  has  undoubtedly  been  to  rouse 
the  latent  distrust  and  quicken  the  opposition  of  the  rank 
and  file  of  organized  laborers.  But  here  again  we  find 
no  force  potent  enough  to  account  for  the  general  oppo- 
sition of  the  union  laity ;  for  it  is  a  well  established  fact 
that  the  rank  and  file  of  unionism  are  quick  to  distrust 
their  leaders  when  these  leaders  take  a  position  which 
seems  to  run  counter  to  their  own  preconceptions  and 
beliefs  drawn  from  immediate  experience  or  tradition. 
Let  the  union  leader  endeavor  to  enforce  on  the  rank 
and  file  something  which  is  fundamentally  opposed  to 


334  TRADE  UNIONISM 

their  standards  and  beliefs,  and  he  soon  finds  that  his 
leadership  is  of  the  quality  represented  by  that  of  the 
man  at  the  head  of  the  charging  crowd.  If  he  is  to 
lead  he  must  run  fast  to  keep  them  off  his  heels,  and  he 
must  run  where  the  mind  of  the  crowd  wills. 

(4)  The  crudities  of  scientific  management  in  prac- 
tice, and  its  many  abuses  by  charlatans  or  by  ignorant 
and  unscrupulous  employers — conditions  and  abuses  the 
prevalence  of  which  the  scientific  management  group 
would  be  the  last  to  deny  or  to  attempt  to  minimize — 
furnish  the  union  propagandists  with  an  inexhaustible 
arsenal  of  facts  and  inferences  with  which  to  illustrate 
their  texts  and  reen force  the  multitude  of  charges  which 
they  hurl  against  the  new  movement.  But  the  very  em- 
ployment of  these  abuses  to  create  opposition  against 
scientific  management  per  se,  and  the  persistent  refusal 
to  attempt  or  even  to  admit  any  distinction  between  sci- 
entific management  as  exemplified  in  the  better  class  of 
shops  where  its  ideals  and  principles  are  being  patiently 
worked  out  and  its  mushroom  counterfeits  where  these 
ideals  and  methods  are  consciously  perverted,  point  to 
grounds  of  opposition  aside  from  and  beyond  its  abuses, 
and  grounds  which  evidently  have  not  yet  been  disclosed. 

(j;)  Finally,  then,  we  come  to  Mr.  Taylor's  own  ex- 
planation of  union  opposition  in  the  incompatibility  of 
the  ideals  of  scientific  management  and  unionism,  in  that 
the  one  is  organized  for  peace  and  harmonious  action 
between  employers  and  workmen,  the  other  for  war; 
that  the  one  demands  an  ever  Increased  efficiency,  while 
the  other  is  committed  to  limitation  of  output. 

Do  we  come  here  to  the  real  and  ultimate  answer  to 
the  question,  why  does  organized  labor  oppose  scientific 
management?    In  a  certain  sense  I  believe  that  we  do. 


LABOR  AND  SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT    335 

I  believe  that  the  persistent  and  growing  opposition  of 
unionism  to  scientific  management  does  rest  finally  upon 
a  fundamental  opposition  of  the  ideals  essentially  char- 
acteristic of  the  two  things.  But  I  cannot  subscribe  to 
Mr,  Taylor's  analysis  of  this  proposition — his  explicit 
statement  of  the  opposed  ideals  of  scientific  management 
and  organized  labor — because  I  believe  that  he  has  here 
misinterpreted  the  really  fundamental  ideals  of  trade 
unionism.  He  has  mistaken  action  for  motive — the 
objective  facts  of  union  policy  imposed  by  circumstances 
for  the  underlying  purposes  of  unionism  which  have  been 
forced  to  find  expression  in  facts  which  belie  their  real 
nature.  In  so  doing,  I  believe  that  he  committed  an  error 
similar  to  that  of  the  unionists  in  judging  the  ideals  of 
scientific  management  by  its  crudities  and  abuses. 

In  this  connection  it  is  misleading  to  speak  of  union- 
ism as  a  whole.  In  fact  there  is  no  such  thing  as  union- 
ism in  the  sense  of  a  consistent  organic  or  functional 
unity.  On  the  contrary,  "there  are  in  the  United  States 
today  hundreds  of  union  organizations  each  practically 
independent  or  sovereign,  and  each  with  its  own  and 
often  peculiar  structural  arrangements,  aims,  policies,  de- 
mands, methods,  attitudes  and  internal  regulations.  Nor 
is  there  any  visible  or  tangible  bond  that  unites  all  these 
organizations  into  a  single  whole,  however  tenuous. 
Groups  there  are,  indeed,  with  overstructures  and  de- 
clared common  aims  and  methods.  But  group  combats 
group  with  the  bitterness  that  can  arise  only  out  of  the 
widest  diversity  of  ideals  and  methods."  In  short,  trade 
unionism  is  everywhere  very  much  of  an  opportunistic 
phenomenon.  Unionists  have  been  prone  to  act  first  and 
to  formulate  theories  afterward ;  and  they  have  habitu- 
ally acted  to  meet  the  problems  thrust  upon  them  by  im- 


336-  TRADE  UNIONISM 

mediate  circumstances.  Modes  of  action  which  have 
failed  when  measured  by  this  standard  have  been  rejected 
and  other  means  sought.  Methods  that  have  worked 
have  been  preserved  and  extended,  but  always  the  stand- 
ards of  judgment  have  been  most  largely  determined  by 
the  needs  and  experiences  of  the  particular  group  con- 
cerned. 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  generalization  that  we 
can  most  legitimately  use  is  to  speak  of  a  dominant  type 
of  unionism,  and  we  may  perhaps  say  that  this  dominant 
type  is  represented  functionally  by  the  ideals  and  methods 
advocated  by  the  leaders  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor. 

It  is  with  respect  to  this  dominant  type  of  unionism 
that  I  believe  Mr.  Taylor  has  mistaken  the  objective 
facts  of  policy  imposed  by  circumstances  for  underlying 
purposes.  In  the  case  of  this  dominant  union  type  the 
reality  seems  to  be  this:  it  is  not  organized  for  war, 
though  it  does  engage  in  warfare ;  it  recognizes  the  cry- 
ing need  for  increased  efficiency  and  productiveness, 
though  it  does,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  under  certain  circum- 
stances and  for  reasons  which  we  shall  see  later,  limit 
the  output.  In  both  cases  it  has  been  forced  to  modify 
its  general  ideals  in  practice  by  the  conditions  and  cir- 
cumstances which  it  has  found  itself  obliged  to  face. 

The  truth  is  that  the  outlook  and  ideals  of  this  domi- 
nant type  of  unionism  are  those  very  largely  of  a  busi- 
ness organization.  Its  successful  leaders  are  essentially 
business  men  and  its  unions  are  organized  primarily  to 
do  business  with  employers — to  bargain  for  the  sale  of 
the  product  which  it  controls.  It  has  found,  however, 
by  long  and  general  experience  that  if  it  is  to  do  business 
with  the  average  employer  or  with  associations  of  em- 


LABOR  AND  SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT    337 

ployers  it  must  be  prepared  to  fight.  But  throughout 
its  history  this  fighting  has  been  predominantly  con- 
ducted with  the  purpose  of  forcing  employers  to  recog- 
nize it  as  a  business  or  bargaining  entity.  Its  position 
and  experience  have  been  very  much  like  that  of  a  new 
and  rising  business  concern  attempting  to  force  its 
way  into  a  field  already  occupied  by  old  established 
organizations  in  control  of  the  market.  Like  the  new 
business  concern,  it  has  had  to  fight  to  obtain  a  foothold. 
But  to  argue  from  this  that  it  is  organized  for  war  is 
a  complete  non  seqicittir. 

A  somewhat  similar  situation  has  existed  in  regard 
to  the  matter  of  output.  Business  unionism  has  recog- 
nized, in  general,  the  evils  of  restriction  and  has  been 
willing  to  allow  and  even  to  encourage  the  introduction 
of  new  machinery  and  improved  processes  and  methods, 
and  to  sanction  increased  effort  and  productiveness  on 
the  part  of  its  members  up  to  reasonable  physiological 
limits,  provided  it  could  be  guaranteed  that  the  improved 
methods  and  the  increased  exertion  and  output  should 
not  be  made  the  means  of  lessening  the  share  of  the 
workers  in  the  product  or  forcing  upon  them  lower  wage 
rates  and  inferior  conditions  of  employment.  But  here 
again  it  has  found  the  average  employer  or  employers' 
association  standing  in  the  way.  It  has  been  taught  by 
long  and  bitter  experience  that  employers  could  and 
would  make  use  of  improvements  and  increased  output 
by  the  workers  not  only  to  seize  all  of  the  gains  but  even 
to  reduce  the  actual  rates  and  returns  to  the  workers. 

The  fact  is  that  despite  all  theorizing  to  the  contrary, 
the  wages  of  workmen  under  the  unscientific  conditions 
that  have  prevailed  in  industry  are  not  determined  auto- 
matically by  specific  output  or  by  supply  and  demand, 


338  TRADE  UNIONISM 

but  immediately  by  a  process  of  bargaining.  The  two 
most  important  factors  in  determining  the  outcome  of 
this  bargaining  process  have  been  the  customary  nor- 
mal or  standard  day's  work  and  the  customary  stand- 
ard of  living  of  the  workers  concerned.  These  have 
been  the  practical  standards  of  right,  justice  and  expedi- 
ency most  generally  considered.  In  bargaining  between 
employer  and  workmen,  as  it  has  generally  taken  place  in 
the  past,  if  the  employer  could  make  it  appear  that,  under 
the  existing  conditions,  the  workers  were  not  producing 
up  to  the  standard  day's  work,  he  had  a  strong  case  to 
show  that  wages  ought  to  be  lowered  or  that  more  work 
ought  to  be  done  for  the  same  pay,  which  amounts  vir- 
tually to  lowering  the  wage.  If,  further,  the  employer 
could  make  it  appear  that,  at  the  given  wage  rate,  or  on 
the  basis  of  the  standard  day's  work,  the  workers  could 
secure  a  standard  of  living  higher  than  that  customary 
with  them,  he  had  a  strong  case  to  show  that  the  wage 
rate  ought  to  be  lowered",  or,  at  least,  that  it  should  not 
be  increased.  In  a  contest  of  this  kind  the  employer  has 
been  fairly  sure  of  the  support  of  public  opinion,  arbi- 
trators, the  police  and  the  courts. 

Now  the  workers  have  been  taught  by  long  experience 
that  the  average  employer  is  constantly  seeking  to  take 
advantage  of  these  facts  to  secure  an  increase  of  the  out- 
put and  at  the  same  time  to  lessen  the  share  and  the 
amount  of  the  product  going  to  the  workers.  Thus, 
when  new  machinery  and  methods  are  introduced,  he 
points  to  the  fact  that,  at  the  old  wage  rates  and  under 
the  old  conditions  of  work,  the  laborers  are  able  to  secure 
earnings  more  than  sufficient  to  maintain  their  custom- 
ary standard  of  living,  and  makes  this  a  basis  for  lower- 
ing of  rates  or  at  least  for  a  refusal  to  increase  wages 


y 


LABOR  AND  SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT    339 

and  improve  conditions  of  work.  Where  competition  is 
keen,  he  has  usually  been  able  to  carry  this  off  by  adding 
to  the  arguments  stated  above  that  profits  have  not  risen 
or  that  they  have  positively  declined  as  the  result  of  the 
improved  methods.  Where  competition  has  been  absent, 
i.  e.,  where  a  combination  has  controlled  the  goods  mar- 
ket, the  employer  has  usually  been  strong  enough  to 
carry  his  point  regardless  of  facts  and  arguments.  Thus, 
new  machinery  and  methods  have  generally  not  improved 
the  wages  and  conditions  of  the  workers  immediately 
concerned  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  have  not  infrequently 
lowered  them,  especially  where  these  improvements  have 
created  conditions  of  increased  competition  among  the 
workers,  as  they  very  generally  have  done. 

Turning  now  to  the  other  aspect  of  the  matter — in- 
creased effort  and  productiveness  on  the  part  of  work- 
men where  no  improvement  in  methods  has  taken  place 
— the  experience  of  the  workers  has  been  that  the  old 
line  employer  has  been  constantly  endeavoring  to  speed 
them  up  and  overreach  them  by  the  creation  of  "swifts" 
and  "bell-horses,"  through  the  introduction  of  "company 
men,"  by  threatening  and  coercing  individuals  whose 
native  resisting  power  was  weak  or  whose  circumstances 
were  precarious,  and  by  offering  secret  premiums  or 
bonuses.  When  through  these  methods  some  man  or 
group  of  men  has  been  induced  to  speed  up,  their  accom- 
plishment has  been  taken  as  the  standard  for  all  to  attain. 
Thus,  in  the  case  of  day  work,  the  accomplishment  of 
the  strongest  and  swiftest  was  the  goal  set  up  for  all, 
if  wages  were  not  to  be  lowered,  while  in  the  case  of 
piece  work  the  rate  of  wages  tended  to  be  lowered  by 
these  exceptionally  rapid  workers,  because  at  the  given 
rate  it  could  be  shown  that  they  could  make  more  than 


340  TRADE  UNIONISM 

was  necessary  to  maintain  their  customary  standard  of 
living.  Under  these  circumstances  the  workers  found 
that  increased  efficiency  and  output  by  members  of  their 
immediate  group  tended  to  mean,  not  a  corresponding 
increase  of  pay,  but  less  wages  for  all,  or  more  work  for 
the  same  pay ;  and  the  only  way  they  could  see  to  prevent 
overspeeding  and  the  lowering  of  rates  was  to  set  a  limit 
on  what  any  individual  was  allowed  to  do,  in  short,  to 
limit  individual  and  group  output  until  the  employer 
could  be  forced  to  guarantee  increased  wages  for  in- 
creased effort  and  output. 

These  are  facts  which,  I  believe,  cannot  be  contro- 
verted. No  one  recognized  this  more  clearly  than  Mr. 
Taylor  himself,  whose  denunciation  of  the  blindness  and 
unfairness  of  the  average  employer  on  account  of  them 
has  not  been  exceeded  in  strength  and  bitterness  by  the 
labor  leaders,  and  who  declared  publicly  that  were  he 
a  worker  up  against  such  conditions  he  would  feel  as 
they  have  felt  and  do  as  they  have  done  in  the  matter  of 
limitation  of  output. 

In  view  of  the  facts  of  the  case,  then,  as  truly  stated 
by  Mr.  Taylor,  the  circumstance  that  they  do  make  war 
and  that  they  do  limit  output  gives  so  far  no  positive 
grounds  for  Mr.  Taylor's  generalization  that  unionism 
is  organized  for  war,  that  unionism  is  committed  to 
limitation  of  output,  that  the  present  dominant  ideals  of 
unionism  are  incompatible  with  those  of  scientific  man- 
agement, and  that  it  is  from  this  source  that  the  opposi- 
tion of  unionism  comes. 

But  if  these  conclusions  hold,  why,  then,  you  will  at 
once  ask,  does  not  unionism  make  an  exception  in  the 
case  of  scientific  management,  which  is  itself  supposed  to 
be  engaged  in  a  struggle  to  eliminate  those  very  coercive 


LABOR  AND  SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT    341 

and  oppressive  tactics  of  the  old  line  employers  that  have 
forced  unionism  to  limit  output  and  engage  in  industrial 
warfare?  Why,  in  the  case  of  scientific  management, 
which  is  supposed  to  be  committed  to  the  strict  main- 
tenance of  rates,  to  the  elimination  of  speeders  and  to 
the  increase  of  earnings  with  improved  methods  and  in- 
creased output  by  the  workers,  does  it  not  cease  its  war- 
fare and  raise  its  embargo  on  increased  output  ?  Doubt- 
less the  various  causes  of  union  opposition  which  we 
have  discussed  are  a  partial  explanation.  Ignorance  of 
the  true  nature,  methods  and  results  of  scientific  man- 
agement, distrust  of  the  new  and  the  different  acquired 
by  bitter  experience,  the  propagandist  influence  of  lead- 
ers, the  crudities  and  abuses  of  scientific  management  in 
practice — all  undoubtedly  tend  to  create  and  maintain 
union,  opposition. 

But  these  things  are  not  sufficient  to  account  for  it 
fully.  The  fact  is,  I  believe,  that  behind  and  beneath 
all  this  there  is  an  essential  incompatibility  between  the 
basic  ideals  of  scientific  management  and  those  of  the 
dominant  type  of  trade  unionism.  Not  an  incompati- 
bility of  the  character  Mr.  Taylor  believed  to  exist,  but 
one  still  more  fundamental.  It  is,  I  believe,  this.  Sci- 
entific management  can  function  successfully  only  on 
the  basis  of  constant  and  indefinite  change  of  industrial 
condition — the  constant  adoption  of  new  and  better 
processes  and  methods  of  production  and  the  unre- 
strained ability  to  adapt  the  mechanical,  organic  and  hu- 
man factors  at  its  disposal  to  meet  the  demands  of  these 
new  productive  processes  and  methods.  On  the  other 
hand,  trade  unionism  of  the  dominant  type  can  function 
successfidly  only  through  the  maintenance  of  a  fixed  in- 
dustrial situation  and  conditions^  extending  over  a  defi- 


342  TRADE  UNIONISM 

nite  period  of  time,  or  through  the  definite  predetermined 
regulation  and  adjustment  of  industrial  change — the 
establishment  of  definite  rules  and  restraints  governing 
the  adoption  of  new  processes  and  methods  of  produc- 
tion and  the  resulting  mechanical,  organic  and  human 
adaptations  which  the  employer  shall  be  allowed  to  make. 
Scientific  management  is  essentially  dynamic  in  its  con- 
ception and  methods.  To  impose  static  conditions,  or  to 
restrain  it  from  taking  full  and  immediate  advantage 
of  dynamic  possibilities,  robs  it  at  once  of  its  special  pur- 
pose and  effectiveness.  Trade  unionism  of  the  dominant 
type  is  effective  only  where  it  can  secure  the  strict  main- 
tenance of  the  industrial  status  quo,  or  can  make  its 
influence  count  effectively  in  all  matters  affecting  its 
membership  during  the  term  of  a  contract.  The  condi- 
tions necessary  to  the  effectiveness  of  the  one  are,  there- 
fore, incompatible  with  the  effectiveness  of  the  other. 

To  show  the  truth  of  these  statements  we  have  only  to 
examine  briefly  the  character  and  results  of  the  central 
methods  or  means  through  which  these  contrasted  enti- 
ties, scientific  management  and  the  dominant  type  of 
unionism,  function. 

As  I  have  stated  previously,  the  central  and  essential 
instrument  or  method  of  scientific  management,  the  fun- 
damental means  through  which  it  secures  knowledge  of 
the  industrial  situation  and  which  guides  it  in  action 
toward  the  attainment  of  its  ends,  is  time  and  motion 
study,  applied  not  alone  to  the  setting  of  tasks  and  the 
making  of  rates,  but  to  the  discovery  and  inauguration 
of  improvements  in  the  material,  organic  and  human 
conditions  and  arrangements  of  the  productive  process. 
Thus  used,  time  and  motion  study  means  constant  and 
endless  change  in  the  methods  of  operation.     No  sooner 


LABOR  AND  SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT     343 

is  a  new  and  better  method  found  and  established  than 
an  improvement  upon  it  is  discovered,  involving  perhaps 
new  machinery,  new  tools  and  materials,  and  a  new  way 
of  doing  things.  Change,  change  and  still  more  change 
is  the  special  purpose  and  mission  of  this  essential  instru- 
ment and  central  feature  of  scientific  management.  In 
short,  time  and  motion  study  in  its  broader  conception 
appears  to  be  a  method  of  analysis  applied  to  almost 
every  feature  of  the  productive  concern  and  process. 
And  it  is  something  which  is  not  done  once  and  for  all, 
but  is  applied  continuously  throughout  the  life  of  the 
establishment.  The  scientific  management  based  upon  it 
is  a  perpetual  attempt  to  put  into  operation  the  new  and 
constantly  developing  arrangements  continuously  re- 
vealed by  it  to  be  more  efficient.  Not  the  least  of  these 
are  the  discovery  and  adoption  of  new  and  more  effective 
operations  and  tasks,  the  reclassification  of  the  working 
force  to  meet  the  needs  of  these  new  conditions,  the 
shifting  of  the  individual  worker  from  class  to  class  and 
task  to  task  in  order  to  discover  the  work  for  which  he 
is  best  adapted,  the  handling  of  the  individual  laborer's 
work  and  pay  with  reference  to  his  particular  quality  and 
temperament  so  as  to  bring  into  play  his  best  productive 
possibilities.  To  deprive  scientific  management  of  the 
immediate  use  of  the  results  of  time  and  motion  study, 
especially  to  restrain  it  from  taking  advantage  of  the 
better  classification  of  workers  and  the  better  adaptation 
of  the  particular  worker  to  the  particular  task  which 
time  study  reveals,  would  be  to  deprive  it  of  its  chief 
characteristic — its  constant  striving  toward  the  end  of 
maximum  possible  efficiency,  the  thing  that  essentially 
marks  it  off  from  ordinary  systems  of  management  and 
gives  it  productive  superiority  to  them.     In  short,  such 


344  TRADE  UNIONISM 

deprivation  would  prevent  it  from  functioning  normally. 
Turning  now  to  unionism  of  the  dominant  type,  we 
find  that  the  great  body  of  its  essential  policies,  demands 
and  methods  center  about  and  are  in  the  interest  of  one 
great  principle — the  principle  of  uniformity,  as  regards 
all  the  conditions  of  work  and  pay  affecting  the  group 
of  workers  which  it  represents.  The  principle  of  uni- 
formity, fully  developed  and  applied,  requires  that  all 
men  doing  the  same  work  should  be  supplied  with  the 
same  tools  and  conveniences,  work  normally  the  same 
length  of  time  and  at  the  same  maximum  speed,  turn 
out  the  same  maximum  quantity  and  quality  of  goods, 
and  receive  the  same  rate  of  wages.  It  is  in  the  interest 
of  this  principle  of  uniformity  that  the  unionists  demand 
the  establishment  of  a  standard  rate  of  wages  as  a  fixed 
minimum,  a  normal  day  or  week  as  a  maximum,  a  stand- 
ard rate  of  work  or  a  standard  day's  or  week's  work, 
which,  in  connection  with  a  standard  rate  of  wages, 
tends  to  make  this  standard  rate  a  practical  maximum. 
It  is  largely  to  penalize  the  violation  of  these  standards, 
so  that  there  may  be  no  inducement  to  break  down  the 
principle  of  uniformity,  that  unions  demand  pay  at  an 
extra  rate  for  overtime  and  for  doing  work  in  irregular 
ways  or  under  irregular  circumstances.  It  is  to  prevent 
the  violation  of  these  standards  of  work  and  pay,  and  so 
to  protect  the  principle  of  uniformity,  that  they  demand 
control  over  the  working  personnel  through  the  closed 
shop,  control  over  the  output  of  the  individual,  the  aban- 
donment of  bonuses  and  premium  payments,  and,  finally, 
collective  bargaining — a  contract  made  with  the  whole 
group  of  workers,  extending  over  a  definite  period  and 
covering  all  the  conditions  of  work  and  pay  for  all  the 
men  during  th?  contract  period. 


LABOR  AND  SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT     345 

The  reasons  for  the  insistence  upon  this  principle  of 
uniformity  have  been  indicated  earher  in  this  paper.  It 
is  not  that  the  unions  desire  the  limitation  of  output  and 
are  definitely  committed  to  it,  but  that  long  experience 
with  the  average  employer  has  ground  into  their  souls 
the  belief  that  employers  as  a  class  are  constantly  seek- 
ing to  lov/er  the  wage  rate,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
increase  the  speed  and  exertion  of  the  workers  of  the 
group  through  driving  or  bribing  individuals  of  the 
group  to  greater  speed  and  longer  hours;  and  then  are 
setting  up  the  work  and  pay  of  these  men  as  evidence 
to  prove  that  the  others  are  soldiering  on  the  job  and 
must  increase  their  exertions  or  suffer  a  reduction  of 
wage  rates  or  a  lengthening  of  hours  of  work.  The 
only  effective  way  that  the  unions  have  found  for  pre- 
venting this  underbidding  on  the  part  of  individual  work- 
ers and  the  consequences  indicated,  is  to  cut  out  all  work- 
ing competition  between  the  members  of  the  group,  by 
insisting  on  the  definite  establishment  of  uniform  stand- 
ards to  be  observed  by  all  and  to  cover  all  the  conditions 
of  work  and  pay — i.  e.,  by  the  establishment  and  main- 
tenance of  the  general  principle  of  uniformity,  applied 
to  all  the  members  of  each  particular  working  group. 

And  it  is  evident,  say  the  vmionists,  that  the  principle 
of  uniformity  thus  conceived  cannot  be  established  and 
maintained  against  the  employer  who  wishes  to  violate 
it  unless  all  the  conditions  and  methods  of  work  and  pay 
are  Hxed  for  the  term  of  a  contract — that  is,  unless  all 
change  is  either  barred,  or  is  predetermined  and  regu- 
lated through  the  establishment  of  definite  rules  and 
restraints  governing  the  adoption  of  new  processes  and 
methods,  and  the  resulting  mechanical,  organic  and  hu-- 
man  adaptations  and  changes  in  payment  which  the  eia 


34^  TRADE  UNiONtSM 

ployer  shall  be  allowed  to  make  during  the  contract  pe- 
riod. Any  change  in  machinery,  processes,  tools,  ma- 
terials, products,  not  predetermined  or  regulated,  opens 
the  way  for  new  classifications  of  work  and  workers  not 
covered  by  the  contract  and  thus  opens  the  way  by  which 
the  employer  may  seek  to  overreach  the  men,  to  degrade 
workers,  establish  new  and  lower  rates  of  pay  and  less 
advantageous  conditions  of  work ;  in  other  words,  to 
reintroduce  competition  of  workman  with  workman  and 
consequent  underbidding  among  them,  and  thus  demolish 
entirely  the  structure  of  uniformity  which  the  unions 
have  reared. 

Nor  is  this  all.  Looking  at  the  matter  in  the  long 
run  and  assuming,  as  the  unions  habitually  do,  that  the 
employer  is  on  the  outlook  to  profit  at  the  expense  of 
the  workers,  not  even  the  predetermination  and  regula- 
tion of  changes  by  means  of  periodical  contracts  between 
the  employers  and  unions  can  save  the  principle  of  uni- 
formity from  ultimate  destruction  where  time  and  mo- 
tion study  is  tolerated.  For  time  and  motion  study 
means  a  constant  tendency  toward  the  break-up  of  old 
established  crafts  and  the  substitution  of  specialist  work- 
men for  the  all-round  craftsmen.  Further,  through  it 
there  is  a  constant  discovery,  gathering  up  and  classifica- 
tion by  the  management  of  the  knowledge  of  the  best 
ways  of  performing  work,  on  the  basis  of  which  definite 
instruction  cards  can  be  issued.  With  these  and  the 
guidance  of  functional  foremen,  relatively  unskilled 
workers  can  be  taught  in  a  short  time  to  do  efficiently  a 
very  great  part  of  the  work  which  only  skilled  crafts- 
men could  be  trusted  with  formerly.  And  still  further, 
the  possession  of  this  definite  information  enables  the 
employer  to  measure  more  accurately  the  work  and  capa- 


LABOR  AND  SCIENTIFIC  MANAGEMENT    347 

bilities  of  each  man,  and  to  determine  more  accurately 
what  wage  payments  would  induce  each  worker  to  do  his 
best.  Where  time  and  motion  study  is  allowed,  then, 
even  under  regulation,  the  employer  at  the  end  of  each 
contract  period  would  be  less  and  less  dependent  on  the 
union  and  more  and  more  inclined  to  substitute  specialist 
workmen  for  craftsmen,  and  efficiency  methods  of  pay- 
ment for  the  uniform  day  wage.  But  it  is  a  notorious 
fact  that  relatively  unskilled  specialist  workmen  do  not 
make  good  unionists,  and  that  efficiency  methods  of  pay- 
ment tend  to  center  the  attention  and  interest  of  each 
workman  on  his  own  affairs  and  thus  to  lessen  the  feel- 
ing of  mutual  interest  and  common  dependence  among 
the  workers.  Under  these  circumstances  the  union 
could  not  long  maintain  the  conditions  which  it  considers 
essential  to  industrial  democracy  in  the  shop  and  enforce 
the  principle  of  uniformity  against  the  will  of  the  em- 
ployer. 

There  appears  to  be  no  getting  round  the  fact,  there- 
fore, that  constant  indefinite  change  of  industrial  condi- 
tions, such  as  is  essential  to  the  functioning  of  scientific 
management,  is  in  clear  contradiction  to  the  principle  of 
uniformity  which  is  the  central  and  fundamental  princi- 
ple of  trade  union  policy  and  is  absolutely  essential,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  dominant  type  of  unionism,  to 
its  successful  functioning.  Instinctively,  therefore,  the 
dominant  typye  of  unionism  fights  against  change  and 
against  time  and  motion  study,  the  mother  of  change. 

But,  you  will  again  say,  granting  the  incompatibility 
of  these  fundamental  principles,  why  does  not  unionism 
make  an  exception  of  scientific  management  and  scien- 
tific management  employers  who  are  not  trying  to  over- 
reach the  workers  but  on  the  contrary  are  definitely  com- 


548  TRADE  UNIONISM 

mitted  to  maintenance  of  rates  and  to  a  leveling  up  of 
earnings  with  every  increase  of  efficiency?  The  answer 
of  the  unionists  is,  that  these  may  be  the  ideals  of  scien- 
tific management  but  they  have  not  worked  out  in  prac- 
tice. Scientific  management  may  maintain  rates  and 
level  up  the  earnings  of  the  workers  at  any  given  task; 
but  what  good  does  that  do  the  skilled  craftsmen,  the 
bulk  of  the  old  line  unionists,  when,  through  the  constant 
and  unending  change  which  scientific  management  is  in- 
augurating, it  destroys  the  very  crafts  to  which  the  rates 
for  which  they  stand  apply,  and  forces  them  to  join  the 
crowd  of  specialized  workmen  whose  earnings  may  be 
raised  by  scientific  management  but  nevertheless  will  still 
be  lower  than  the  old  craftsman's  pay?  In  scientific 
management  at  its  very  best  unionism  of  the  dominant ' 
type  sees  its  worst  enemy,  in  that  scientific  management 
means  the  abolishment  of  the  very  craft  conditions  and 
the  very  psychology  of  industrial  democracy  upon  which 
the  unions  have  painfully  erected  their  superstructure  of 
uniformity,  and  upon  whose  continuation  their  identity 
and  continued  functioning  depend. 

Specialize  the  old  line  craftsman,  destroy  his  craft, 
and  however  high  your  ideals  and  kindly  your  motives, 
you  are  destroying  the  foundations  upon  which  the  dom- 
inant type  of  unionism  is  reared.  Every  union  leader 
feels  this  instinctively ;  every  one  who  has  come  into  con- 
tact with  scientific  management  and  who  has  an  under- 
standing of  unionism  knows  that  this  is  what  it  is  doing. 
Here,  I  believe,  we  have  the  final  answer  to  the  question 
"why  organized  labor  opposes  scientific  management." 
Scientific  management,  properly  applied,  normally  func- 
tioning, should  it  become  universal,  would  spell  the  doom 
of  effective  unionism  as  it  exists  today. 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  351 

sympathies  and  habits  of  thought,  regardless  of  their 
source  of  income.  Thus,  from  the  psychological  stand- 
point, all  those,  whatever  the  source  of  their  income,  who 
feel  that  their  interests  are  identical  with  those  of  the 
employers,  whose  motives,  beliefs,  habits  of  thought,  so- 
cial attitudes  and  sympathies  are  in  harmony  with  the 
mass  of  employers,  belong  tO'  the  employing  class,  while 
those  who  feel  that  their  interests  are  with  the  wage- 
workers,  or  whose  motives,  beliefs,  habits  of  thought, 
social  attitudes  and  sympathies  are  in  harmony  with  the 
mass  of  the  workers,  belong  to  the  laboring  class.  i 

But  now  there  are  those  who  say  that  this  is  a  distinc- 
tion without  a  difference;  that  at  bottom  these  two  stand- 
points are  identical,  since  one's  view  of  his  own  interests 
or  one's  motives,  beliefs,  habits  of  thought,  social  atti- 
tudes and  sympathies  are  determined  by  his  economic  in- 
terests or  his  objective  environment.  One  who  gets  his 
income  from  interest  or  profits,  or  who  works  as  a 
profit  taker  and  lives  among  profit  takers,  will  of  neces- 
sity view  his  interests  as  in  harmony  with  the  employing 
class,  and  will  have  the  motives,  beliefs,  social  attitudes 
and  sympathies  of  the  mass  of  the  employers,  and  those 
who  get  their  income  as  wageworkers  will  of  necessity 
be  in  harmony  with  the  viewpoint  of  the  mass  of  the 
workers. 

There  are,  however,  two  reasons  for  the  failure  of 
coincidence  of  the  objective  or  mechanical  and  the 
psychological  social  groups.  It  is  not  a  part  of  the  en- 
vironment of  the  individual,  the  economic  part,  that 
makes  him  what  he  is  spiritually,  but  the  total  social  en- 
vironment, his  mode  and  conditions  of  getting  a  living 
plus  his  social  relations,  his  educational,  moral  and  reli- 
gious influences,  his  political  environment,  and  so  on. 


352  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Secondly,  men  are  not  wholly  determined  in  their  atti- 
tudes, habits  of  thought  and  sympathies,  by  the  immedi- 
ate environment,  but  also  by  personal  and  social  heredity 
and  tradition.  They  are  bundles  of  inherited  and  tradi- 
tional sentiments  and  impulses.  Like  father  like  son. 
Men  carry  with  them  into  a  new  environment  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  old. 

There  is,  then,  a  real  distinction  between  these  stand- 
points or  tests  for  judging  of  the  existence  or  nonexist- 
ence of  social  classes,  and  it  will  make  a  difference  which 
of  these  tests  or  standpoints  we  adopt,  for  the  existence 
of  classes  is  apparently  much  more  easily  proved  from 
the  objective  or  mechanical  standpoint  than  from  the 
subjective  or  psychological  standpoint. 

Which  of  these  tests  shall  we  then  apply?  The  an- 
swer seems  clear.  The  important  test  for  us  is  the  sub- 
jective or  the  psychological,  because  we  are  making  a 
study  of  labor  conditions  and  problems  not  merely  to 
discover  what  conditions  and  problems  exist,  but  primar- 
ily to  determine  what  can  and  ought  to  be  done  to  better 
conditions  and  to  solve  problems.  While  the  determina- 
tion that  society  is  or  is  not  composed  of  classes,  looking 
at  it  from  the  objective  or  mechanical  standpoint,  might 
help  us  in  determining  what,  in  view  of  our  individual 
standards,  ought  to  be  done,  it  would  not  help  us  at  all 
in  determining  what  can  be  done.  To  guide  and  help  us 
here,  we  need  to  know  whether  society  is  a  harmonious 
whole,  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  motives  and  as- 
sumed interests,  or  whether  from  this  standpoint  it  is 
composed  of  warring  classes.  In  the  latter  case  we  need 
to  know  what  causes  these  classes  to  exist,  how  they 
stand  related  to  one  another  in  interest  and  motive,  and 
what  their  quality,  organization  and  strength  are.     Only 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  353 

thus  can  we  determine  which  of  the  things  that  ought  to 
be  are  possible,  and  how  to  go  about  the  task  of  making 
them  so. 

If,  from  this  standpoint,  we  find  that  society  is  at  bot- 
tom a  harmonious  whole,  we  can  and  in  general  ought 
to  let  things  alone,  assured  that  they  will  work  out  ulti- 
mately for  the  best  interest  of  all,  and  that  social  tinker- 
ing will  only  delay  the  process.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  find  that  society  is  composed  of  classes  with  opposed 
interests  and  opposed  viewpoints,  we  can  be  assured, 
when  we  find  apparent  evils,  that  something  ought  to 
be  done,  and  the  character  of  the  classes  which  we  find, 
and  their  motives,  solidarity,  and  strength  will  give  us 
the  clue  to  the  remedy  it  is  possible  to  apply,  and  how. 
If  we  want  action,  we  can  get  it  only  through  under- 
standing men,  not  mechanical  arrangements  and  rela- 
tionships. 

Social  ethics  is  a  matter  neither  altogether  of  the  con- 
flicting ideals  of  a  mere  aggregation  of  individuals  nor 
of  the  ethical  consensus  of  an  undifferentiated  social 
whole,  but  it  is  largely  a  net  resultant  at  any  time  of  the 
conflict  and  compromise  growing  out  of  the  existence  and 
struggle  for  recognition  of  social  group  standards.  In 
other  words,  it  is  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  society 
as  it  exists  today  is  made  up  of  a  great  series  of  func- 
tional social  groups  which,  though  perhaps  holding  in 
common  a  general  fund  of  ethical  concepts  characteris- 
tic of  the  age,  still  has  each  its  special  ethical  code  pecu- 
liar in  content  or  in  the  relative  emphasis  placed  upon  its 
elements,  for  which  the  group  is  struggling  to  secure  uni- 
versal acceptance.  In  so  far  as  this  is  true,  it  is  evident 
that  ethical  progress  in  a  democratic  society  like  ours  de- 
pends upon  our  knowledge  of  these  special  ethical  codes 


354  TRADE  UNIONISM 

and  the  conditions  that  create  them,  and  of  the  effective 
forces  with  which  they  are  backed.  If  we  are  to  guard 
and  guide  the  ethical  standards  of  the  nation  we  must 
understand  in  what  terms  and  for  what  ends  appeal  can 
be  made  to  its  constituent  elements — in  short,  we  must 
know  the  springs  of  action  of  the  functional  groups 
which  compose  it. 

Labor,  using  the  term  in  the  generally  accepted  sense 
as  including  all  those  who  work  for  hire,  is  not  a  true, 
functional-,  social  group  possessing  a  single,  distinctive 
and  consistent  moral  code,  but  is  a  group  of  groups  rep- 
resenting, ethically  speaking,  common  humanity  in  all 
its  heights  and  depths,  manifold  diversity  and  contradic- 
toriness.  In  other  words,  those  who  work  for  hire  con- 
stitute a  single  and  distinctive  social  group  only  in  a 
mechanical  or  statistical  sense  of  the  term. 

Functionally  and  ethically — that  is,  from  the  stand- 
point of  aims,  standards  of  right,  rights  and  justice, 
social  policies,  demands,  methods  and  attitudes — this 
mechanical  or  statistical  group  called  labor  is  a  great 
complex  of  groups,  diverse  and  often  vitally  opposed  in 
viewpoint.  Its  members  are  frequently  component  ele- 
ments of  functional  social  groups,  made  up  not  only  of 
those  who  work  for  hire,  but  of  representatives  of  the 
professions,  the  trades,  the  farmers,  manufacturers,  and 
even  of  the  so-called  leisure  class.  The  truth  of  this 
statement  is  a  matter  of  common  observation  once  we 
free  ourselves  from  inborn  preconceptions,  indoctrinated 
prejudices,  traditions  or  theories,  or  the  insulation  of 
social  exclusiveness.  That  it  is  bound  to  be  true  in  a 
community  democratic  in  character  and  made  up  of  di- 
verse racial  and  temperamental  elements  is  evident  from 
a  little  analysis  of  functional  social  groups  and  of  the 


II 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  355 

causes  which  create  and  maintain  them.  A  functional 
social  group  may  be  defined  as  a  body  of  individuals 
holding  a  common  viewpoint  in  regard  to  one  or  a  num- 
ber of  vital  social  matters  and  in  this  respect  at  variance 
with  the  viewpoints  of  other  members  of  society.  It  is 
this  common  viewpoint  and  interest  and  the  common  pur- 
pose which  results  that  make  the  group  socially  effective. 
It  tends  to  act  with  respect  to  this  common  center  of 
attention  and  toward  all  that  most  vitally  relates  to  it 
as  a  unit  with  whatever  strength  of  numbers,  character, 
wealth,  position  and  influence  it  may  possess  or  can  com- 
mand, and  thus  to  force  society  in  this  respect  to  adopt 
its  standards  and  to  modify  social  actions  and  institu- 
tions accordingly. 

The  common  interest  and  viewpoint  of  a  functional 
social  group  may  be  narrow  and  specific,  its  members 
united  in  sympathy  or  for  common  effort  only  on  some 
one  or  a  small  number  of  social  aims  and  purposes,  with 
a  correspondingly  limited  program  of  action.  Or  the 
members  of  a  social  group  may  have  a  common  interest 
and  hold  to  a  common  viewpoint  with  respect  to  a  wide 
range  of  social  matters,  its  outlook  on  life  approximating 
a  social  philosophy  and  its  program  of  action  a  compre- 
hensive social  policy.  In  a  community  relatively  isolated 
from  world  contact  and  little  affected  by  inventions, 
characterized  therefore  by  status,  the  tendency  is  to  the 
formation  and  relative  permanency  of  these  larger  func- 
tional social  groups.  Society,  then,  tends  to  be  divided 
into  castes  or  classes,  based  on  occupation,  mutually  ex- 
clusive in  membership,  each  with  a  distinct  social  and 
ethical  code  and  standards ;  but  in  a  society  like  our  own, 
democratically  organized,  characterized  therefore  by 
much  and  varied  contact  betw^n  tb^  individuals  pf  the 


356  TRADE  UNIONISM 

different  mechanical  groups,  exposed  by  intercourse  to 
the  ideas  and  ideals  of  every  nation,  changing  in  its  com- 
position by  the  influx  of  every  race  and  order  of  men, 
applying  new  ideas  and  inventions  to  the  rapid  alteration 
of  its  methods  of  production,  exchange  and  modes  of 
communication,  enlarging  and  shifting  its  wants,  con- 
stantly developing  new  social  problems  and  new  social 
issues,  there  is  little  opportunity  for  the  development  of 
caste  or  class.  Only  those  permanently  isolated  from 
the  complex  and  shifting  influences  of  a  rapidly  develop- 
ing democratic  society,  by  the  leisure  and  exclusiveness 
conferred  by  the  assured  possession  of  wealth,  or  through 
hopeless  submergence  into  the  ranks  of  unskilled,  unedu- 
cated and  poverty-stricken  labor,  present  the  conditions 
favorable  to  the  development  of  permanent  functional 
groups,  united  by  a  common  philosophy  of  life  and  a 
general  program  of  action.  Between  these  upper  and 
nether  strata  the  functional  groups  in  modem,  demo- 
cratic, progressive  society  are  for  the  most  part  of  the 
relatively  narrow  and  the  specific  sort  whose  members 
are  united  in  viewpoint  and  action  only  on  some  one  or 
a  relatively  small  number  of  social  aims  and  purposes. 
The  chief  characteristic  of  such  functional  groups  is 
that  membership  is  not  necessarily  permanent  and  in- 
volves no  necessary  unity  of  viewpoint  and  action  out- 
side of  and  beyond  its  specific  aims  and  purposes.  The 
individuals  who  compose  one  group  may  at  the  same  time 
be  members  of  many  other  social  groups,  and  in  this 
manifold  social  grouping  the  individual  may  find  himself 
now  associated  with  and  now  opposed  to  his  fellows  of 
a  particular  group.  Thus,  of  two  members  of  a  single 
business  organization,  for  example,  formed  to  secure  effi- 
ciency of  production  or  extension  of  the  market,  or  for 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  357 

aggression  or  defense  against  organized  labor,  one  may 
be  a  Christian,  the  other  an  atheist;  one  may  be  a  sub- 
scriber to  the  doctrines,  ethical  and  social,  of  the  Catholic 
faith,  the  other  an  adherent  of  some  Protestant  church; 
one  may  be  an  ardent  republican,  the  other  an  equally 
ardent  democrat ;  one  may  stand  for  the  enlargement  of 
government  functions,  the  other  for  the  sacredness  of 
natural  individual  rights;  one  may  be  an  ardent  sup- 
porter of  social  uplift,  the  other  a  firm  believer  in  the 
"survival  of  the  fittest";  one  may  be  an  advocate  of  the 
prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic,  the  other,  of  "personal 
liberty";  in  short,  these  two  members  of  the  employing 
group,  united  in  a  single  organization,  created  for  cer- 
tain specific  purposes,  that  is  to  say,  in  a  specific  func- 
tional group,  may  be  found  in  opposing  camps  with  re- 
spect to  all  other  matters  of  ethical  and  social  import, 
and  each  associated  thus  in  turn  with  representatives  of 
every  so-called  social  class. 

That  this  is  bound  to  be  true,  not  only  of  employers 
but  of  those  who  work  for  wages,  becomes  evident  when 
we  look  to  the  causes  which  underlie  and  determine  the 
formation  of  social  groups.  These  groups  are  the  out- 
come, in  the  first  analysis,  of  the  attractive  force  of  like- 
mindedness  and  the  repulsion  of  unlike-mindedness. 
Whatever  operates  to  make  individuals  like-minded  tends 
to  draw  them  together  into  a  group,  narrow  or  compre- 
hensive in  its  outlook  according  to  the  breadth  of  sym- 
pathy involved.  Whatever  emphasizes  or  creates  differ- 
ence of  character,  belief  or  interest  tends  to  repel  indi- 
viduals and  to  force  them  into  diverse  and  opposing 
groups.  These  groups,  therefore,  are  the  outcome  of  the 
attractive  and  repellent  interaction  of  all  the  characteris- 
tics of  individuals,  relatively  permanent  and  relatively 


35B  TRADE  UNIONISM 

temporary  and  shifting,  in  all  the  infinity  of  their  specific 
manifestations  and  combinations,  and  ultimately  of  all 
the  forces,  physical  and  social,  which  play  upon,  create 
and  change  the  character  and  immediate  interest,  atti- 
tudes, and  beliefs  of  particular  men.  They  are  the  re- 
sult thus,  in  part,  of  similarities  and  diversities  of  tem- 
perament and  propensities,  of  interests  permanent  and 
temporary,  of  race  and  physical  characteristics,  of  sex, 
and  of  environment.^  But  the  interest  which  prompts  to 
the  formation  and  diversification  of  functional  groups  is 
not  economic  interest  alone.  The  environment  which 
creates  sympathy  and  antipathy  is  the  whole  social  envi- 
ronment, including  social  traditions  of  every  sort,  the 
educational  influences  and  effects  of  the  family,  the 
school,  the  church,  the  party,  the  infinite  variety  of  social 
organizations,  the  varied  associations  and  contacts,  for- 
mal and  informal,  involved  in  all  the  activities,  the  com- 
ings and  goings  of  life,  as  well  as  the  diverse  conditions, 

^  Unionism,  using  the  term  in  its  broadest  sense,  is  the  re- 
sult of  a  universal  social  tendency — the  tendency  of  men  of 
similar  temperament  and  similar  environment  and  interest  to 
get  together  for  common  action.  Unionism  is,  therefore,  not 
confined  to  wageworkers ;  it  is  one  of  the  most  fundamental  and 
pervasive  of  social  phenomena,  and  is  prevalent  in  every  social 
class.  But  while  unionism  is  generically  the  same  in  all  classes, 
there  are  in  every  class  different  and  in  many  respects  rival 
and  contradictory  species  and  varieties  of  unionism.  This  ap- 
plies with  special  force  to  trade  unionism,  the  unionism  of  the 
wageworkers — where  we  have  several  rival  forms  of  unionism 
which  represent  the  rival  viewpoints  and  programs  of  different 
working  groups.  Trade  unionism  is  distinguished  from  other 
forms  of  unionism  simply  by  the  fact  that  it  is  the  unionism  of 
the  wageworkers,  but  it  does  not  differ  essentially  in  funda- 
mental purpose  and  method  from  the  unionism  of  other  social 
classes  and  groups. 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  359 

standards  of  living,  and  relations  involved  in,  and  the 
outcome  of,  the  industrial  organization  and  activities  of 
society.  The  purely  economic  activities,  conditions  and 
relations  of  the  individual  and  the  associations  growing 
directly  out  of  these  do  indeed  play  a  prominent  role  in 
the  formation  of  character  and  ideals,  and  in  the  de- 
termination of  interest,  and  do  thus  determine  to  a  very 
great  extent  the  formation  of  social  functional  groups, 
but  that  they  are  predominant  as  against  all  other  social 
forces,  even  with  respect  to  the  membership  of  the  com- 
plex labor  group,  is  a  matter  which  admits  at  least  of 
reasonable  doubt.  Not  only  do  the  individuals  who  com- 
pose this  great  labor  group  present  all  the  characteristics, 
and  not  only  are  they  played  upon  by  all  the  formative 
forces  which  make  for  diversity  of  functional  groups, 
but  the  groups  to  which  they  are  found  actually  allied  are 
extremely  diverse,  often  in  opposition,  and  often  derive 
their  membership  partly  or  even  largely  from  those  who 
do  not  work  for  hire.  The  wageworking  group  includes 
every  variety  of  temperament — the  artistic,  religious, 
constructive,  destructive,  conservative,  radical,  revolu- 
tionary. 

Let  us  now  take  up  the  most  important  social  theories 
and  try  to  test  them  from  the  psychological  standpoint. 
First,  the  classical  economic  and  business  man's  theory. 

The  classical  economic  or  business  man's  social  theory 
postulates  the  rational  individual  as  the  unit  of  society. 
Each  individual,  according  to  this  theory,  is  possessed  of 
certain  natural  and  inalienable  rights.  Fundamental 
among  these  natural  and  inalienable  rights  are  private 
property,  free  competition  and  freedom  of  individual 
contract,  noninterference  with  the  natural  law  of  supply 
and  demand  in  the  fixing  of  prices  and  wage  rates,  the 


360  TRADE  UNIONISM 

right  of  the  employer  to  manage  his  business  to  suit  him- 
self, and  the  right  of  the  worker  to  work  when,  where 
and  for  whom  he  pleases. 

It  is  considered  to  be  the  sole  province  of  government 
and  law  to  uphold  these  and  correlative  rights,  thus  al- 
lowing to  the  individual  the  greatest  initiative  and  free- 
dom in  "life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,"  so 
long  as  he  does  not  interfere  with  the  natural  rights  of 
others.  But  any  combination  of  individuals  which  inter- 
feres with  these  natural  rights,  and  especially  with  free 
contract  and  competition,  is  looked  upon  as  artificial  and 
against  the  laws  of  nature.  Hence  the  doctrine  of  lais- 
ses  faire. 

When  these  rights  are  recognized  and  upheld,  and  the 
individual,  so  long  as  he  does  not  violate  the  natural 
rights  of  others,  is  allowed  to  seek  his  own  interest  freely, 
equality  of  opportunity  is  realized,  each  individual  nat- 
urally tends  to  subserve  the  interest  of  his  fellows,  har- 
mony of  interests  prevails  in  society,  and  the  social  and 
economic  position  to  which  any  individual  may  rise  by 
the  exercise  of  industry  and  thrift  is  limited  only  by  his 
abilities.  It  is  the  disregard  of  these  rights  which  pro- 
duces the  absence  of  natural  social  harmony  and  the  ap- 
pearance of  classes  and  class  conflict.  Such  classes  and 
conflict  are,  however,  unnatural,  artificial,  and,  in  the 
long  run,  cannot  endure. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  fundamental  assumptions  un- 
derlying this  theory  are  a  natural  social  order,  resting  on 
unchanging  natural  law  and  natural  rights,  existing  prior 
and  superior  to  social  organization  and  will,  a  fixed  social 
constitution  and  relationships,  sacredness  of  property, 
the  rationality  of  human  nature,  and  the  competitive 
equality  of  individuals  aside  from  personal  differences 


i 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  361 

which  tend  initially  to  be  slight.  It  is  generally  assumed 
by  those  who  hold  to  this  doctrine  that  the  common  law 
is  the  expression  of  immutable  natural  law,  and  that  the 
decisions  of  the  courts  are  normally  the  expression  of 
natural  justice.  When  the  fundamental  law  and  the 
court  decisions  are  allowed  full  force,  the  inalienable  nat- 
ural rights  are  preserved,  the  true  interests  of  all  the 
individuals  are  subserved,  and  social  harmony  prevails. 

While  this  classical  economic  and  business  man's  social 
theory  is  the  most  conservative  and  respectable  thing  in 
the  world,  and  held  by  the  most  conservative  and  respec- 
table people,  it  is  in  very  close  harmony,  in  its  funda- 
mental character,  with  the  theory  of  anarchism.  The 
reactionary  conservatives  and  the  philosophical  anar- 
chists build  on  the  same  foundation  and  are  very  closely 
allied.  Most  of  the  postulates  of  the  classical  viewpoint 
are  anarchistic  postulates :  rationality,  individual  liberty, 
natural  law  and  natural  order  (as  opposed  to  social  order 
and  law),  natural  and  inalienable  rights,  likeness  in  hu- 
man nature,  laisse::;  faire,  and  fundamental  harmony  of 
interest.  The  main  difference  between  the  classical  eco- 
nomic and  business  man's  social  theory  and  the  anarchis- 
tic social  theory  is  that  the  latter  is  more  thorough.  The 
classical  stops,  in  its  laissez  faire  policy  and  in  its  de- 
mands for  the  freedom  of  the  individual,  before  the 
sacred  institution  of  private  property ;  here  it  has  not  the 
courage  of  its  logic.  The  anarchistic  viewpoint  carries 
the  thing  through  logically.  Here  is  the  main  difference. 
Drop  the  classical  economist's  and  business  man's  awe  of 
private  property,  let  it  be  the  free  sport  of  the  rational 
individual  and  your  classical  theory  becomes  practically 
the  anarchistic  theory. 

What  of  the  validity  or  invalidity  of  the  assumption  of 


362  TRADE  UNIONISM 

human  rationality?  Two  points  need  to  be  considered. 
First,  are  we  not  rational  beings  when  we  decide  things 
and  act  for  the  best  interests  of  others  as  well  as  when 
we  decide  and  act  purely  with  our  own  interests  in  view  ? 
The  answer  in  the  abstract  is  yes.  But  the  answer  from 
the  standpoint  of  this  classical  theory  and  its  concep- 
tion of  rationality  is  no.  This  theory  distinctly  as- 
sumes self-interest  as  the  motive  of  rationality  and  ra- 
tional action.  Hear  Adam  Smith  :  "I  have  never  known 
much  good  done  by  those  who  affected  to  trade  for  the 
public  good.  It  is  an  affectation,  indeed,  not  very  com- 
mon among  merchants  and  very  few  words  need  be  em- 
ployed in  dissuading  tliem  from  it."^ 

Secondly,  the  perfectly  rational  man,  preceding  action, 
always  weighs  and  balances  utilities  against  disutilities, 
and  always  acts  in  the  direction  of  the  greatest  net  sur- 
plus of  utility.  This  implies  deliberate  calculation  before 
action,  an  entire  absence  of  emotion,  or  else  a  complete 
disregard  of  emotion  or  feeling.  If  emotion  is  ever  pres- 
ent in  the  rational  human  being  it  is  never  allowed  to 
enter  as  a  disturbing  factor  into  his  calculation  or  to 
influence  his  subsequent  action.  The  rational  man  is 
never  moved  directly  by  fear,  hate,  anger,  revenge,  love 
of  wife,  home,  country,  love  of  approbation,  desire  for 
power  or  prestige.  These  things  move  him,  if  at  all, 
only  after  being  translated  into  terms  of  utilities  and  dis- 
utilities. He  is  never  moved  by  any  of  these  things  to 
act  impulsively  or  thoughtlessly.  If  you  strike  him,  he 
always  calculates  the  consequences  before  he  strikes  back. 

This  assumption  of  deliberate  action  also  implies  an 
entire  absence  of  habit  and  habitual  action.     The  rational 

"Adam  Smith,  Wealth  of  Nations,  Routledge  &  Sons  (1892), 
)t)k.  4.  chap.  2,  p.  345. 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  363 

man  always  weighs  and  balances  before  he  buttons  his 
coat,  or  eats,  or  drinks,  or  smokes,  or  works,  or  plays. 
It  also  denies  the  presence,  as  determinants  of  action,  of 
inherited  tendencies  and  propensities,  of  individual  pre- 
conceptions and  prejudices,  of  passion  of  any  sort. 
Given  a  certain  situation  and  two  men  similarly  situated, 
and,  as  rational  beings,  they  will  always  act  in  the  same 
way.  Is  this  true?  Of  course  it  rules  out  all  instinctive 
action  or  reaction.  A  fly  hits  a  man  in  the  eye.  He 
weighs  and  calculates  utilities  against  disutilities  before 
he  closes  his  eyelid. 

Now,  I  do  not  intend  to  deny  that  men  do  weigh  and 
balance  before  acting,  or  to  maintain  that  they  are  not 
at  all  rational.  What  I  mean  to  say  is  that  they  are  not 
altogether  rational,  that  they  are  moved  by  love  and  hate, 
fear  and  prejudices,  habits  and  propensity,  apart  from 
and  often  in  opposition  to  the  dictates  of  rationality. 
And  this  is  not  only  in  line  with  common  observation  but 
with  modern  psychology,  which  tells  us  that  we  are  bun- 
dles of  propensities,  preconceptions,  impulses,  and  habits 
— some  of  them  inherited  from  a  remote  past.  We  are 
guided  in  our  action  both  by  feeling  and  habit,  by  intel- 
lect, and  perhaps  more  by  the  first  than  by  the  last.  But 
if  it  is  denied  that  man  is  moved  solely  by  rational  self- 
interest,  this  whole  classical  economic  structure  with  its 
assumption  of  harmony  of  interest  in  society  topples 
down.  The  direct  bearing  of  all  this  on  our  immediate 
problem  is  that  we  cannot  get  labor  reforms  through  by 
demonstrating  their  rationality.  We  shall  have  so  to 
move  as  to  appeal  to  men's  emotions  and,  in  short,  to 
take  into  account  their  habits,  thoughts,  etc  This  is 
being  practical,  not  academic. 

Now  this  brings  us  to  the  second  social  theory,  the 


364  TRADE  UNIONISM 

socialist.  Let  us  take  here  a  brief  general  view  of  the 
Communist  Manifesto  :^  Society,  since  the  dissolution 
of  the  primitive  tribal  community,  has  been  composed  of 
warring  classes.  The  fundamental  basis  of  these  classes 
is  opposition  of  economic  interest,  the  outcome  of  private 
ownership.  In  the  development  of  society  these  warring 
classes  have  been  reduced  practically  to  two,  the  bour- 
geoisie, owners  of  the  means  of  production,  profit  takers, 
exploiters,  and  the  proletariat,  practically  propertyless, 
wageworkers,  and  exploited.  This  situation  cannot, 
however,  last,  for  it  produces  a  series  of  destructive  con- 
tradictions :  over-production  with  under-consumption, 
commercial  crises;  increased  repulsiveness  of  work  and 
decreased  remuneration,  increased  plenty  with  progres- 
sive degeneration  of  the  working  class,  cheapness  with 
want;  concentration  of  production  and  capital,  with  free 
competition.  Or,  as  Engels  states  it,  the  situation  is 
characterized  by  socialization  of  the  means  of  production 
with  individual  appropriation ;  or  socialized  production 
and  capitalistic  appropriation ;  organization  of  produc- 
tion in  the  individual  workshop  with  anarchy  of  produc- 
tion in  society  generally.  Increase  in  numbers  and  or- 
ganization of  the  working  class  is  contradictory  to  the 
bourgeoisie  rule.  The  inevitable  outcome  must  be  the 
destruction  of  the  bourgeoisie,  the  triumph  of  the  work- 
ing class,  the  abolition  of  private  property  in  the  means 
of  production  and  the  final  abolition  of  classes  and  class 
rule,  when  harmony  of  interests  will  prevail  in  the  coop-j 
crative  commonwealth. 

Does  this  socialist  theory  rest  on  any  of  the  funda- 
mental assumptions  of   the  classical   economic  theory?! 

"Karl  Marx  and  Frederick  Engels  (1848),  The  Manifesto  o/j 
the  Cummunist  Party. 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  365' 

On  natural  order  and  natural  law?  Yes,  but  it  is  a  dif- 
ferent order  and  law,  not  fixed,  but  developing  and  evo- 
lutionary. On  natural  rights?  Yes,  and  the  full  prod- 
uct of  toil,  for  example.  Harmony  of  interest?  Again 
yes,  but  it  is  an  ultimate  outcome.  What  assumptions 
of  the  classical  economic  viewpoint  does  this  contradict? 
The  rational  individual  as  the  unit  of  society?  Not  al- 
together, because  each  man  is  supposed  to  know  his  own 
interest.  It  contradicts  the  assumptions  of  human  equal- 
ity, of  fixed  social  relationships,  although  ultimately  not 
so,  of  sacredness  of  property  and  laisses  fairc.  What 
other  assumptions  are  there?  Economic  determinism. 
Man  and  social  structures  are  molded  entirely  by  the  en- 
vironment and  by  the  economic  environment  and  forces. 
Social  evolution.  Not  the  modern  conception  of  evolu- 
tion, of  indefinite  change,  but  of  change  according  to  a 
fixed  program  with  a  determinate  end — God  or  Nature 
predetermining  it — that  is,  teleological  evolution.  In- 
evitable determinism.  No  social  effort  can  control  or 
change  the  course  of  what  is  economically  determined.* 
The  theory  of  Professor  Veblen  is  generally  fairly 
closely  allied  with  that  of  the  socialist.  Like  that,  it 
sees  society  as  made  up  of  warring  classes,  mainly  the 
employing  and  working  class ;  like  that,  it  is  evolutionary 
— it  sees  these  classes  as  the  result  of  a  process  of  evolu- 
tion ;  like  that,  it  lays  immense  stress  upon  the  economic 
factor  as  a  determinant  of  classes  and  class  conflict. 
These  classes  are  the  product  of  modem  machine  indus- 

*The  Syndicalist  theory  is  like  the  socialist,  only  different  in 
its  methods.  It  is  opposed  to  political  action  and  favors  a 
physical  revolution  by  the  workers,  and  working  class  rule  in 
society  made  up  of  self-contained  industrial  groups. 


366  TRADE  UNIONISM 

try,  by  it  cut  ofif  from  contact  with  one  another,  each  with 
a  separate  molding"  environment  and  mental  discipHne. 

This  theory  differs,  however,  from  the  sociahstic  the- 
ory in  some  very  important  respects.  These  classes  exist 
apart  and  are  at  odds  not  so  much  because  of  a  real  fun- 
damental opposition  of  interests,  as  because  of  an  inabil- 
ity to  see  things  alike,  due  to  a  difference  in  the  economic 
functions  and  economic  environment.  This  theory  is  evo- 
lutionary but  evolutionary  in  a  different  way  from  the 
socialistic  theory.  There  is  constant  change  but  in  no 
assignable  direction,  and  with  no  determination.  There 
is  not  teleology  in  it.  The  difference  in  environment  with 
ts  classes  and  class  conflict  is,  therefore,  likely  to  go  on 
ndefinitely — to  be  a  permanent  state  of  affairs.  An- 
other important  implication  is  that  there  is  no  third  or 
ntermediary  or  mediating  class  possible;  therefore,  no 
compromise  or  higher  social  control.  Veblen's  theory 
jKDstulates  blind,  opaque,  physical  force  and  causation  as 
the  chief  social  determinants.  Man  is  not  rational,  there 
are  no  natural  rights,  no  social  norm,  no  natural  harmony 
of  interests,  no  final  social  time  when  harmony  of  inter- 
ests will  rule.  Classes  and  class  struggles  are  the  in- 
evitable social  situation.  There  are  no  general  social 
standards  of  right  and  wrong,  good  and  bad,  to  which 
we  can  refer  things  for  solution.  All  is  in  the  grip  of 
fate,  of  physical  and  economic  causation.  At  present, 
then,  we  have  two  classes  and  the  inevitable  two-class 
struggle. 

What  is  the  matter  with  this  theory?  Does  it  work 
out  in  practice?  Existing  facts  in  this  connection  as  to 
class  solidarity  confute  it.  Instead  of  one  labor  view- 
point we  have  business,  uplift,  revolutionary  unionism 
and  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World.     But  is  it 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  367 

true  theoretically?  It  is  in  line  with  modern  science  as 
to  nonteleological  evolution.  It  is  in  line  with  modern 
psychology  as  to  the  nonrationality  of  man,  who  is  a 
bundle  of  inheritances,  propensities,  prejudices  and  in- 
stincts. It  is  in  line  with  modern  sociology — no  natural 
rights,  no  natural  order,  no  natural  law  as  distinct  from 
social  order  and  social  law,  nonharmony  of  interests,  no 
absolute  right  and  wrong.  On  the  other  hand,  it  places 
too  much  stress  ujhdu  the  economic  environment  as  a 
formative  force.  Man  is  the  outcome  of  his  total  social 
environment.  The  individual,  according  to  Veblen,  can- 
not react  on  this  environment ;  he  is  not  a  center  of  force. 
But  cannot  we  do  something  to  change  this  environment 
by  education,  shop  arrangements,  etc.?  Again,  there  are 
no  such  rigid  economic  environments  and  disciplines. 
There  is  much  more  social  interaction  than  is  supposed. 

The  progressive-uplift  theory  postulates  a  fundamental 
and  ultimate  harmony  of  interests  in  society.  It  recog- 
nizes the  present  existence  of  social  classes  and  class  con- 
flict but  regards  these  as  the  temporary  outcome  of  lack 
of  sufficient  social  interaction,  knowledge  and  under- 
standing. Science  and  democracy,  however,  are  gradu- 
ally overcoming  these  deficiencies.  As  science  increases 
the  knowledge  of  social  facts,  forces  and  relationships, 
as  democracy,  especially  through  universal  education,  de- 
velops, and  particularly  as  the  practices  of  industrial 
democracy,  especially  through  collective  bargaining, 
spread,  there  evolves  a  common  social  viewpoint,  and  a 
real  social  will  of  the  people  destined  to  do  away  with 
classes  and  class  conflict,  and  to  substitute  in  their  place 
social  justice  and  social  harmony  in  the  pursuit  of  gen- 
eral well-being. 

According  to  this  theory,  present  social  conflict  is  due 


368  TRADE  UNIONISM 

mainly  to  the  existence  and  mutual  opposition  of  an  em- 
ploying and  a  working  class.  But  already  there  is  devel- 
oping a  strong  third  party — sometimes  called  "the  peo- 
ple," sometimes  "the  consumers" — unbiased  in  its  view- 
point, standing  for  social  justice,  and  representing  the 
true  social  will,  a  party  already  capable  in  ordinary  cases 
of  acting  as  mediator  and  arbiter  between  the  warring 
classes.  With  the  growth  of  knowledge  of  social  affairs 
and  the  increase  of  social  interaction  fostered  by  democ- 
racy, this  third  party  will  gradually  control  the  warring 
classes  and  ultimately  absorb  them.  The  social  will  will 
then  be  supreme,  and  social  harmony  will  prevail.  The 
attainment  of  this  end  involves  a  constant  extension  of 
social  control  in  the  form  of  legislation  and  public  opin- 
ion in  the  support  of  the  weaker  warring  class — the 
workers. 

The  progressive-uplift  theory  rests  mainly  on  the  fol- 
lowing fundamental  assumptions  :  ( i )  That  man  is  not 
rational  but  is  capable  of  a  high  degree  of  rationality. 
(2)  That  man  is  a  product  of  his  total  social  environ- 
ment and  inheritance.  (3)  That  increased  knowledge 
and  increased  association  of  individuals  and  classes  will 
produce  increased  understanding,  sympathy  and  har- 
mony of  viewpoint.  (4)  That  a  strong  social  group  is 
capable  of  freeing  itself  from  class  interest  and  bias,  of 
knowing  what  right,  justice  and  welfare  are  for  all  in 
society,  and  of  thus  standing  as  an  impartial  arbiter  be- 
tween warring  classes.  (5)  That  social  will  is  an  ex- 
pression of  natural  law.  In  the  crasser  statements  of 
this  theory  social  will  is  regarded  as  superior  to  natural 
law  in  social  affairs. 

Here  various  questions  naturally  arise.  How  do  we 
'know  that  there  is  a  fundamental  and  ultimate  harmony 


( 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  369 

of  interests  in  society — how  prove  it?  What  does  the 
assumption  go  back  to?  What  about  the  facts?  Is  it 
true  in  regard  to  some  issues  but  not  in  regard  to  others? 
Even  if  we  can  get  a  third-party  decision  on  each  ques- 
tion, how  are  we  going  to  know  that  it  is  right?  Is  lack 
of  social  interaction,  i.  e.,  lack  of  understanding,  being  un- 
able to  see  the  other  person's  point  of  view,  the  only  basis 
of  classes  and  class  conflict?  When  there  is  a  real  fun- 
damental difference  of  interest,  can  there  be  any  real 
social  will  or  any  social  justice,  any  social  standards  of 
right  or  wrong?  Where  would  they  come  from,  and 
what  sanctions  would  they  have?  Is  there  any  such 
class  as  consumers,  the  public,  the  people?  Are  not  all 
consumers  producers  with  producers'  interests,  allying 
them  to  one  or  the  other  group?  Is  not  the  interest  of 
the  public  different,  with  different  class  inclinations  on 
different  subjects?  Is  the  public  always  wiser  than  the 
class  in  the  industry  concerned  as  to  what  should  be 
done?  Has  public  control  so  far  proved  wise  and  effi- 
cient ? 

It  is  urged  in  criticism  of  this  theory  that  there  is  a 
group  of  questions  on  which  the  interests  of  different 
social  classes  are  opposed.  But  in  respect  to  any  specific 
issue,  such  as  wages  or  hours  in  a  particular  industry,  are 
the  classes  solidly  lined  up,  and  are  those  which  are  lined 
up  usually  a  social  majority?  ^  Must  we  have  agreement 
on  standards  of  right  and  justice  to  get  people  to  act 
together  to  better  conditions,  to  get  a  real  social  will? 
Is  there  nothing  for  the  public  to  do  but  helplessly  to 
view  the  struggle  between  antisocial  factions,  or,  at  most, 
to  play  the  subordinate  and  equivocally  useful  part  of 

'  See  C.  H.  Cooley,  Social  Organization,  as  to  the  multitude  of 
overlapping  groups  different  for  each  question, 


370  TRADE  UNIONISM 

"make-weight"  between  them?  Must  our  final  conclu- 
sion be  thus  negative  and  pessimistic?  Personally  I  do 
not  believe  it.  The  apparent  impossibility  of  a  social 
will  and  a  constructive  social  program  comes  from  look- 
ing at  the  situation  as  a  whole  with  a  hidden  assumption 
of  class  viewpoint  unconnected  with  specific  questions, 
and  from  assuming  that  standards  of  right  and  justice 
must  be  absolute.  There  is  a  door  to  constructive  social 
opportunity  and  here,  I  believe,  is  the  key  with,  which  it 
can  be  unlocked. 

While  in  matters  in  which  the  interests  of  the  warring 
classes  are  really  opposed  there  appears  to  be  no  possibil- 
ity of  a  third  party  altogether  without  any  economic  class 
interest  and  bias,  or  of  setting  up  general  and  absolute  or 
exact  standards  of  social  right  or  justice  to  which  all  or  a 
majority  can  be  depended  upon  to  adhere,  there  is  a 
possibility  of  discovering  in  connection  with  every  such 
specific  problem  minima  and  maxima  which  represent  a 
nearer  approach  than  at  present  exists  to  social  right  and 
justice.  These  are  the  limits  within  which  right  and  justice 
lie  in  the  particular  case,  and  to  which  it  is  often  possible 
to  get  the  adherence  of  the  warring  groups  and  almost 
always  the  adherence  of  those,  whatever  their  general 
economic  interest  and  bias,  who  are  not  directly  con- 
cerned. Such,  for  example,  are  minimum  wage  rates, 
maximum  hours,  and  maximum  conditions  of  sanitation 
and  safety  in  the  different  industries.  On  the  basis  of 
these  specific  minima  and  maxima,  we  can  formulate  a 
genera!  constructive  program  of  social  betterment,  and, 
I  believe,  develop  a  real  third  party  in  its  support.  It  is 
true  that  between  the  limits  thus  set  we  shall  apparently 
have  to  allow  the  warring  groups  to  fight  out  the  contest, 
but  we  can  also  establish  maxima  and  minima  in  the  form 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  371 

of  socially  tolerable  rules  of  the  game,  in  accordance  with 
which  the  contest  must  be  fought.     The  great  thing  ir. 
to  get  more  social  interactions.     The  solution,  therefore 
lies  logically  outside  the  field  of  labor  in  education.^ 

It  is  possible  that  some  might  advocate  doing  nothing 
until  we  had  a  complete  constructive  program  worked 
out  and  all  of  the  machinery  necessary  for  putting  it  into 
operation,  for  securing  the  facts,  establishing  maxima 
and  minima  of  every  kind  in  every  occupation,  establish- 
ing socially  tolerable  rules  of  the  game  in  industrial 
contests,  educating  the  public  for  perfect  legislative 
action,  and  for  fair  adjudication,  wise  administration  and 
enforcement  of  the  law.  This,  however,  would  mean  to 
leave  everything  for  an  indefinite  period  to  be  settled  by 
raw  partisan  contests  and  the  wiles  of  the  politician,  to 
be  settled  by  the  principle  of  might  and  cunning,  with  no 
approach,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  to  justice  and  social 
welfare.  Those  who  have  had  a  vision  of  social  justice 
and  welfare  should  most  decidedly  get  into  the  game  and 
act  up  to  their  best  lights  on  every  occasion.  That  is  the 
only  way  to  keep  things  from  going  to  rack  and  ruin 
while  better  standards  and  concepts  are  taking  form.  If 
action  were  never  taken  until  all  problems  and  all  meth- 
ods were  perfectly  worked  out,  there  would  be  no  prog- 
ress at  all.  That  is  not  the  method  of  social  progress. 
We  progress  socially  mainly  by  the  trial  and  error 
method ;  we  learn  by  action  that  is  partly  right  and  partly 
wrong.  But  action  should  be  foresighted  and  intelligent. 
We  should  not  shut  our  eyes  to  the  need  of  social  stand- 
ards, of  a  constructive  program  and  of  the  machinery  to 

•In  this  connection  read  carefully  the  Commons'  plan,  Final 
Report,  United  States  Commission  on  Industrial  Relations,  pp. 
307-401, 


372  TRADE  UNIONISM 

put  it  into  force.  We  should  not  despair  and  be  content 
simply  to  throw  our  might  as  partisans  to  one  or  the 
other  contending  parties,  blindly  accepting  all  the  errors. 
Instead,  while  we  are  acting  we  should  have  always  in 
mind  the  larger  and  better  thing,  the  long  time  outlook, 
and  try  to  make  our  experiences  throw  light  upon  it.  In 
between  periods  of  action  there  should  be  an  effort  to 
advance  in  the  formulation  of  standards  and  construc- 
tive action  in  the  interest  of  all — to  make  action  a  school 
for  the  development  of  social  understanding  and  con- 
structive ends. 

The  fault  of  reformers  is  not  that  they  act,  but  that 
they  act  blindly  and  act  only,  that  they  do  not  see  the 
whole  of  the  social  situation  back  of  the  particular  inci- 
dent, that  they  do  not  try  to  grasp  this  whole  in  the  inter- 
vals or  try  to  formulate  principles  of  action  from  it. 
Being  simply  spasmodic  and  particularistic,  regarding 
each  struggle  as  a  case  by  itself,  they  do  not  make  any 
general  advance.  The  trouble  with  most  people  who 
make  proposals  in  the  labor  field  is  that  they  do  not  un- 
derstand the  broad  features  and  forces  with  which  they 
have  to  deal.  They  do  not  know,  therefore,  what  ought 
to  be  done,  and  if  they  find  anything  that  apparently 
ought  to  be  done,  they  naively  assume  that  because  it 
ought  to  be  done,  it  can  be  done.  If  men  in  society  were 
mere  pawns  to  be  moved  about  the  board  and  if  their  only 
good  was  their  immediate  material  betterment  and  if  re- 
formers were  omniscient  and  had  the  power  of  God,  this 
would  be  all  right.  But  none  of  these  things  are  true. 
Men  have  their  own  ideas  as  to  what  is  good  for  them 
and  how  to  secure  it.  And  in  a  democracy  you  cannot 
give  men  what  is  for  their  good  except  by  their  consent 
and  b^  moving  them  to  go  out  and  get  it.     Trade  union- 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  373 

ism  is  a  self-help  institution.  The  trade  unionist  wants, 
not  charity,  not  patronage,  but  justice.  He  prefers  to 
get  that  by  his  own  efforts.  He  does  not  want  patron- 
age, however  good  its  objective  results.  He  has  no  sym- 
pathy with  the  people  or  forces  which  would  reach  down 
to  help  him  from  above.  To  know  what  ought  to  be 
done  for  the  workers,  we  must  know  the  men  themselves, 
their  ideas,  ideals,  purposes  and  ways  of  looking  at 
things;  the  relationships  that  actually  exist  among  them 
and  how  they  view  these  relationships  and  why. 

The  public  should  undoubtedly  take  a  hand  in  such 
matters.  This  is  an  absolute  necessity  if  these  contests 
are  ever  to  be  settled  in  the  interest  of  social  welfare. 
Mere  fighting  between  employers  and  workers  will  never 
attain  this  end.  But  the  so-called  public  has  no  machinery 
of  action,  or  constructive  program,  and  no  means  of  get- 
ting into  the  game  before  the  struggle  is  on.  It  is  prac- 
tically inefficient,  merely  groping.  After  the  struggle  is 
on,  it  finds  itself  obliged  simply  to  line  up  with  one  side 
as  a  partisan,  usually  for  the  workers.  A  strike  starts 
as  a  little  group  contest,  but  the  public,  having  no  infor- 
mation or  standards  of  judgment  or  means  of  indepen- 
dent action,  must  stay  out  or  go  in  as  partisan  of  one 
side  or  the  other.  Some  do  go  in,  enlarging  the  issues. 
That  forces  others  in,  and  gradually  many  are  forced  in. 
The  result  is  a  gradual  enlargement  of  the  line-up,  of 
broadening  points  of  opposition ;  temporary  class  lines 
appear;  a  class  struggle  begins  to  emerge.  All  this  is 
due  to  the  lack  of  means  of  informing  the  public  before- 
hand and  settling  the  difficulty  upon  grounds  of  social 
welfare,  or  of  enforcing  the  public  will. 

Our  labor  laws  are  built  up  haphazard,  due  to  emo- 
tionalism after  some  disaster  or  revelation;  they  are  a 


374  TRADE  UNIONISM 

heterogeneous  and  frequently  contradictory  mass.  Mi- 
nutely specific  and  therefore  inelastic  and  inadaptable, 
they  are  therefore  often  unenforceable,  and  often,  if  en- 
forced, unjust  to  employers  and  harmful  to  the  workers; 
they  show  no  prevision,  no  program,  no  consistency  in 
the  same  state  or  as  between  states. 

The  administration  of  the  law  is  in  the  hands  of  dif- 
ferent bureaus  with  ill-defined  relationships,  jealousies 
and  cross-purposes.  In  Illinois  there  are  the  Industrial 
Board  with  powers  undefined,  a  Board  of  Commissioners 
of  Labor,  the  Department  of  Factory  Inspection,  an 
Employers'  Liability  Commission,  a  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics,  a  State  Mining  Board  and  Inspectors  (five 
commissioners),  a  State  Employment  Office,  and  a  Board 
of  Arbitration.  Political  appointees  hold  offices;  no 
confidence  exists ;  there  are  lax  administration,  inefficient 
inspection,  a  lack  of  knowledge  of  facts,  and  appeals  to 
courts  because  laws  are  unintelligent  and  unintelligently 
enforced. 

In  labor  contests  no  foreknowledge  exists ;  there  is  no 
machinery  for  getting  it,  no  enlightened  public  opinion; 
there  is  arbitrary  disregard  of  public  rights  (street  car 
strikes),  false  claims  and  a  helpless  public.  The  work- 
ers want  arbitration  when  weak  but  refuse  it  when 
strong.  Arbitration  is  conducted  on  no  principles ;  rather 
is  it  always  a  compromise  against  the  employer.  There 
are  no  real  settlements. 

We  must  have  means  for  developing  a  body  of  exact 
and  truthful  information,  developing  common  standards 
of  right  and  justice  (maxima  and  minima  or  rules  of  the 
game),  developing  a  real  public  opinion  back  of  them, 
developing  a  constructive  social  program,  getting  cen- 
tralized, strong,  able,  elastic  administration  and  enforce- 


SOCIAL  CONTROL  375 

ment  of  laws,  with  a  view  to  the  whole  situation;  getting 
and  applying  knowledge  and  standards  to  control,  and  in 
the  settlement  of  contests,  creating  to  this  end  social  in- 
teractions. This  understanding  and  knowledge  can  be 
secured  only  by  the  closest  first-hand  study  in  the  field. 
It  is  all  a  matter  of  doing  the  work  in  a  calm,  orderly, 
large-minded  and  farsighted,  constructive  and  scientific 
manner. 

Bibliography 

Address  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  on  the  Principles  and  Poli- 
cies of  the  Progressive  Party,  before  the  convention  of 
the  National  Progressive  Party  (1912). 

Bulletin  of  the  Wisconsin  Industrial  Commission. 

Bulletin  of  the  New  York  Industrial  Commission. 

CooLEY,  C.  H.    Social  Organisation  (1909). 

HoxiE,  R.  F.  "The  Trade  Union  Point  of  View,"  Journal 
of  Political  Economy,  vol.  XV,  345-363  (1907). 

"Is  Class  Conflict  in  America  Growing  and  Is  It 

Inevitable?"   American  Journal   of  Sociology,   vol. 
XIII,  776-781   (1908). 

Laughlin,  J.  L.  "Business  and  Democracy,"  Atlantic 
Monthly,  116:89  (1915). 

Marx  and  Engels.    The  Communist  Manifesto. 

The  Progressive  Party  Platform  (1912). 

United  States  Commission  on  Industrial  Relations,  Final 
Report  (1915),  Report  of  Commissioners  John  R.  Com- 
mons and  Florence  J.  Harriman,  pp.  307-404.  Supple- 
mentary Statement  of  Chairman  Frank  P.  Walsh,  p.  297. 

Veblen,  Thorstein.  The  Theory  of  Business  Enterprise 
(1904). 


APPENDIX  I 
NOTES  ON  METHOD 

Historical  Method  vs.  Historical  Narrative 

It  is  almost  an  axiom  nowadays  that  "the  present  can  be 
understood  only  with  reference  to  the  past."  The  general 
acceptance  of  this  phrase  is  supposed  to  mark  the  triumph 
of  the  historical  spirit  and  correlatively  of  the  historical 
method.  If  this  were  true  it  would  mean  undoubtedly  a 
great  scientific  advance.  But  to  what  extent  is  it  true?  Is 
there  ground  for  the  belief  that  the  historical  spirit  and 
method,  scientifically  speaking,  are  comprehended  by  any 
large  proportion  of  contemporary  scholars  and  teachers? 
Are  not  the  most  evident  results  of  the  apparent  dominance 
of  the  new  ideal,  at  least  in  economics  and  closely  allied 
disciplines,  a  great  deal  of  misdirected  and  barren  historical 
reading,  and  much  indiscriminate  indulgence  in  mere  his- 
torical narrative? 

As  things  go  now,  if  a  general  theory  of  economics  is  to 
be  exploited,  it  must  be  preceded  by  chapters  on  the  de- 
velopment of  English  industry  from  the  middle  ages ;  if 
the  discussion  is  one  concerning  capital  and  its  uses,  it 
must  begin  with  an  erudite  consideration  of  the  etymological 
development  of  terms;  if  a  class  is  to  be  set  to  study  con- 
temporary municipal  problems,  it  must  first  be  made  to  drag 
slowly  through  the  history  of  European  municipalities ;  if  a 
student  undertakes  to  treat  critically  or  constructively  a 
bit  of  current  theory  he  is  likely  to  be  regarded  as  un- 
scientific and  unscholarly  if  he  fails  first  to  read  and  sum- 

376 


APPENDIX  1  3jr^ 

tnarize  in  a  '''historical  part"  all  that  has  been  written  on 
the  subject  before.  In  fact,  historical  narrative,  masquer- 
ading as  historical  method,  has  become  a  fad.  The  truly 
scientific  historical  method  is  exemplified  only  here  and 
there  in  the  work  of  a  few  thoughtful  scholars  and  teachers, 
and  counts  for  little  because  its  real  character  and  signifi- 
cance are  rarely  comprehended. 

It  is  difficult  to  realize  just  what  the  authors  and  ad- 
vocates of  this  sort  of  preliminary  historical  narrative  and 
study  expect  it  to  accomplish.  The  well-meaning  but  vague 
phrases  with  which  they  introduce  it  certainly  do  not  en- 
lighten us.  Apparently  they  think  and  act  in  obedience, 
more  or  less  conscious,  to  the  modern  scientific  imperative 
which  demands  that  things,  as  they  are  found,  be  explained 
in  terms  of  genesis  and  process.  But,  when  one  faces  the 
question,  how  can  these  narratives  contribute  to  any  such 
explanation  in  any  specific  case?  The  historical  narrative 
is  "introductory" ;  it  precedes  the  statement  of  any  situation 
to  be  explained ;  its  facts  are  neither  selected  nor  arranged 
with  reference  to  any  specific  problem.  Apparently  there 
is  a  vague  idea  that  the  "historical  setting"  is  in  some  way 
endowed  with  the  power  both  to  evoke  and  to  solve  prob- 
lems still  unstated ;  and  certainly  no  other  supposition,  in 
these  days  of  multiplied  interests,  would  justify  the  attempt 
to  get  at  the  meaning  of  any  definite  problem  by  first  filling 
the  mind  with  a  mass  of  information,  relevant  and  irrele- 
vant, indistinguishably  intermixed.  The  fact  is  that  there 
is  a  vast  difference  between  the  historical  method  of  science 
and  this  common,  indiscriminate,  historical  narrative  and 
study  which  is  a  travesty  of  it. 

To  understand  the  historical  method  and  to  make  use  of 
it  in  scientific  work  or  in  teaching  we  must  first  realize  just 
what  is  the  end  of  scientific  investigation  and  how  it  is  that 
an  appeal  to  history  can  aid  us  in  attaining  this  end.  We 
are  prone  to  think  of  scientific  knowledge  as  an  end  in 
itself — to  speak  of  the  scientific  spirit  as  simply  a  desire 


378    TRADE  UNIONISM  IN  UNITED  STATES 

to  know — to  understand  the  existing  situation — ^but  is  it 
not  true  that  in  reality  all  scientific  investigation  is  under- 
taken in  furtherance  of  some  definite,  vital,  human  inter- 
est ?  We  wish  to  control  the  forces  at  hand  so  as  better  to 
realize  some  human  purpose,  therefore  we  seek  to  com- 
prehend the  existing  situation  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
purpose  or  interest  in  question.  The  scientific  interest  is 
therefore  not  merely  academic  but  is  in  a  sense  practical — 
practical  in  the  sense  that  it  is  an  interest  in  understanding 
for  the  sake  of  the  life  of  society  or  the  individual.  It 
follows  that  all  scientific  investigation  is  bound  to  be  highly 
selective.  We  do  not  seek  to  understand  the  existing  situa- 
tion as  a  whole — that  would  be  impossible — but  we  seek  to 
understand  the  present  in  its  relation  to  the  interest  at 
stake,  the  problem  in  hand.  With  this  end  in  view  we  go 
as  scientists  to  the  past — to  history — not  to  endeavor  to 
"reconstruct  the  past,"  but  for  light  on  the  practical  prob- 
lem before  us.  We  go  to  the  past  in  our  scientific  social 
studies  because  we  recognize  the  fact  that  just  as  living 
individuals  are  not  altogether  what  we  see  them  to  be  in 
immediate  thought  and  action,  but  are  also  bundles  of  sup- 
pressed and  latent  motives,  propensities,  and  potentialities 
inherited,  some  of  them,  from  a  remote  past,  so  social  insti- 
tutions are  not  merely  what  they  can  be  shown  to  be  by 
study  of  their  present  structure  and  functioning,  but  are 
also  what  they  are  actually  or  potentially  in  process  of  be- 
coming as  the  result  of  the  operation  of  forces  past  as  well 
as  present.  Hence  it  is,  in  a  sense,  true,  that  the  present 
can  be  understood  only  with  reference  to  its  past. 

The  elements  of  the  historical  method,  as  applied  to  so- 
cial science,  ought  to  follow  as  a  series  of  simple  corollaries 
from  what  has  been  said.  The  purpose  of  this  method  is 
evidently  to  further  the  solution  of  a  definite  problem 
through  helping  to  explain  a  present  situation — either  the 
actual  or  some  definite  past  institutional  situation  which  is 
assumed  for  the  purposes  of  study  to  be  present.     The 


APPENDIX  1  379 

problem  presented  is  therefore  specific,  immediate,  prac- 
tical. The  immediate  historical  question  is :  how  did  this 
situation  come  to  be  what  it  is?  The  data  through  which 
this  question  is  to  be  answered  are  specific  and  selected; 
they  are  derived  from  its  past  as  distinguished  from  the 
past  of  other  institutions,  or  from  the  facts  of  general 
institutional  history. 

Clearly  then  the  historical  method  in  this  connection  pre- 
supposes a  well-defined  institutional  situation — a  descrip- 
tive account  of  what  is  or  has  been  at  some  definite  time — 
and  the  facts  which  it  marshals  out  of  the  past  in  explana- 
tion of  this  situation  are  not  general,  but  refer  specifically  to 
this  situation ;  they  aim  to  show  definitely  its  genesis  and 
the  process  through  which  it  came  to  be  what  it  is.  In 
other  words,  the  historical  method  of  science,  as  applied  to 
economics  and  kindred  subjects,  requires  that  the  problem 
first  be  raised,  that  the  situation  as  seen  in  the  present  first 
be  stated,  and  that  then,  and  not  till  then,  solution  of  the 
question  zvhy  be  attempted  by  a  careful  study  of  the  past 
out  of  which  the  situation  given  is  supposed  to  have 
emerged. 

With  the  simple  exceptions  of  the  character  and  source 
of  its  data,  therefore,  the  historical  method  does  not  differ 
from  the  ordinary  method  of  scientific  investigation.  The 
fact  that  we  have  to  go  to  history  for  the  data — to  become 
in  a  sense  historians — does  not  alter  the  scientific  end  and 
does  not  relieve  us  from  the  utmost  exercise  of  our  mental 
powers  in  hypothesis,  analysis,  discriminating  selection, 
synthesis,  and  clear  and  logical  statement.  In  other  words, 
historical  data  are  scientifically  important  only  when  they 
explain  some  matter  of  fact  of  vital  interest  to  us.  There 
is  nothing  sacerdotal  about  them.  They  have  no  impor- 
tance merely  because  they  refer  to  the  past.  Their  impor- 
tance is  to  be  determined  in  any  given  case  by  exactly  the 
same  tests  to  which  ordinary  data  are  subjected. 

To  bring  out  more  clearly  the  contrast  between  the  hi»- 


380  TRADE  UiSilONiSM 

torical  method  as  thus  characterized,  and  mere  historical 
narrative  misapplied,  let  us  take  an  example  or  two.  Sup- 
pose the  matter  under  discussion  to  be  the  comprehension 
of  the  present  capitalistic  organization.  The  pseudo-his- 
torical schoolman  starts  out  with  a  sketch  of  the  industrial 
history  of  England  and  then,  having  done  supposed  hom- 
age to  the  scientific  spirit  of  the  age,  he  proceeds  to  a  close 
taxonomic  treatment  of  the  present  situation,  interwoven 
with  good  old-fashioned  explanation  of  it  in  terms  of  the 
mechanical  equilibrium  of  present  forces — human  motives 
and  physical  forces.  Just  what  has  the  historical  intro- 
duction signified  here  ?  The  true  exemplar  of  the  historical 
method,  on  the  other  hand,  starts  from  an  analysis  and 
description  of  the  capitalistic  system  as  an  actual  complex 
institutional  structure  upheld,  for  the  moment  if  you  please, 
by  the  mechanical  equilibrium  of  present  forces.  Looking 
thus  at  the  thing  as  it  now  appears,  he  asks  the  question 
why,  in  his  attempt  to  better  understand  the  situation  from 
the  standpoint  of  his  peculiar  interest,  and  then  proceeds  to 
answer  the  query  by  specific  historical  investigation.  The 
whole  difference  in  this  case  between  the  two  methods  is 
that  we  have,  on  the  one  hand,  the  mechanical  juxtapo- 
sition of  historical  narrative  and  analysis  of  present  phenom- 
ena and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  scientific  solution  of  a 
definitely  stated  problem  by  means  of  appropriately  mar- 
shaled data. 

Or  suppose  we  are  endeavoring  to  make  an  earnest  study 
of  the  present  trade-union  movement.  If  we  were  to  fol- 
low the  example  and  spirit  of  those  who  preface  economic 
texts  with  historical  chapters,  we  should  feel  it  necessary, 
before  getting  acquainted  with  the  ideas  and  methods  of . 
Samuel  Gompers,  John  Mitchell,  and  Cornelius  P.  Shea, 
to  plod  laboriously  up  through  the  history  of  labor  condi- 
tions and  organizations  from  the  dawn  of  the  era  of  free 
labor  at  least.  Actuated  by  the  historical  spirit,  we  should 
iirst  try  to  get  at  the  present  situation — the  ideas,  ideals. 


APPENDIX  I  381 

aims,  and  methods  of  the  present  unionists.  Then  we 
should  call  in  the  aid  of  past  experience  to  help  us  determine 
the  sources  and  the  life  history  of  these  present  notions 
and  methods  of  labor,  and,  therefore,  what  as  social  and 
industrial  institutions  trade  unions  really  are  and  are  be- 
coming, what  their  real  relation  is  to  the  complex  institu- 
tional situation  of  the  present,  and  therefore,  as  a  corollary, 
how  they  are  to  be  looked  upon  and  dealt  with  for  the 
best  interests  of  society. 

It  must  be  admitted  of  course  that  the  present  is  no 
more  capable  of  being  completely  realized  than  the  past  is 
of  being  completely  reconstructed.  Attempts  both  to  realize 
and  to  reconstruct  are  bound  to  be  selective.  Unless  the 
interest  in  the  realization  of  the  present  is  superior  to  the 
interest  that  prompts  to  the  attempt  to  reconstruct  the 
past  there  is  no  ground  for  preferring  the  one  attempt  over 
the  other.  But  the  "historical  narrative"  interest  is  mainly 
academic,  while  that  interest  in  the  realization  of  the  pres- 
ent which  makes  use  of  the  historical  method  in  harmony 
with  modern  scientific  insight,  is,  as  we  have  pointed  out, 
in  a  sense  practical — practical  in  the  sense  that  it  is  an 
interest  in  understanding  for  the  sake  of  or  in  the  interest 
of  the  life  of  the  society  or  the  individual.  The  historical 
spirit  in  harmony  with  the  modern  scientific  spirit  or  at- 
titude is  simply  the  going  to  the  past  to  gratify  the  same 
interest  that  prompts  to  the  attempt  to  realize  the  present. 
The  main  trouble  with  those  who  indulge  in  historical  nar- 
rative is  that  they  seem  to  think  that  academic  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  past  can  contribute  to  the  ends  of  the  prac- 
tical interest  of  the  present.  In  this  they  are  for  the  most 
part  mistaken.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  practical  in- 
terest involved  the  academic  reconstruction  is  a  hopeless 
tangle  of  relevancy  and  irrelevancy,  altogether  without  defi- 
nite teaching. 

In  conclusion  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  note  that 
while  the  prefacing  of  the  discussion  of  economic  principles 


382  TRADE  UNIONISM 

and  conditions  by  long-drawn-out  historical  narratives 
violates  the  most  vital  rules  of  pedagogy,  the  historical 
method  lends  itself  admirably  to  pedagogical  needs  if 
rightly  understood.  It  gives  the  student  something  definite, 
something  with  which  he  is  ordinarily,  through  experience 
or  reading,  in  some  degree  familiar;  it  rouses  his  interest 
by  asking:  what,  in  terms  of  some  vital  human  interest, 
does  this  situation  mean  ?  And  then  it  invites  him  to  search 
for  the  answer  to  this  question.  This  harmonious  rela- 
tionship between  the  scientific  and  the  pedagogical  method, 
however,  should  not  too  much  prejudice  the  new  race  of 
university  investigators  who  afifect  to  deprecate  the  peda- 
gogical point  of  view  as  unworthy  the  consideration  of  the 
scientist. 

Problem  and  Method 

The  real  problem  method  consists  in  taking  some  one 
vital  social  thing  and  in  working  it  out  as  a  problem,  draw- 
ing into  it  and  giving  substance  and  practical  application 
to  the  whole  body  of  knowledge  that  you  possess  mechani- 
cally and  absolutely.  You  thus  locate  and  find  use  for 
what  you  have  acquired  without  life  connections  elsewhere. 
Make  all  the  work  you  are  doing  in  the  university  and 
all  your  outside  daily  experience  count.  If  you  try  thus 
to  link  this  work  up  with  daily  life  and  not  let  it  be  merely 
an  academic  -matter,  you  will  be  surprised  where  and  how 
much  suggestive  material  you  will  get.  Everything  that 
happens  will  contribute  to  throw  some  light  on  your  prob- 
lem. This  is  the  direct  corollary  of  pragmatism,  its  direct 
teaching  and  application. 

All  this  means  that  no  one  should  come  into  the  course 
who  is  not  vitally  interested,  who  cannot  see  that  the  sub- 
ject touches  some  life-purpose  of  his,  and  who  is  not  pre- 
pared to  work  hard  and  at  times  to  go  far  beyond  the 
schedule  of  hours  which  university  courses  on  the  average 
presume  to  require.    There  are  no  carefully  prepared  lee- 


I 


APPENDIX  I  383 

tures  to  ease  over  the  places  where  materials  are  diffuse, 
ill-adapted  and  hard  to  get  at.  The  whole  thing  is  a 
problem  to  me  as  well  as  to  you.  We  shall  succeed,  there- 
fore, only  if  each  one  is  vitally  interested  and  contributes 
all  that  he  can  to  the  result. 

In  this  course  we  have  to  formulate  our  own  problems, 
determine  our  own  method,  plow  our  way  through  great 
masses  of  ill-adapted  secondary  materials  for  small  sig- 
nificant results,  and,  for  the  most  part,  seek  our  materials 
in  the  raw.  We  shall  have  to  attend  union  meetings ;  meet 
and  study  union  officials ;  read  and  digest  union  constitu- 
tions and  working  rules,  trade  agreements,  and  convention 
reports ;  study  union  periodicals ;  follow  in  the  newspaper 
union  controversies ;  work  up  special  topics ;  read  court 
decisions;  and,  if  strikes  or  lockouts  occur  in  the  city,  get 
out  and  study  them  at  first-hand,  and  watch  the  methods 
employed. 

One  of  our  first  contacts  with  unionism  will  be  attend- 
ing a  meeting  of  the  Chicago  Federation  of  Labor.  This 
is  a  city  central,  one  of  the  organic  units  of  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor.  It  is  composed  of  delegates  from 
local  unions,  mostly  craft  locals  which  are  again  members 
of  national  trade  unions.  Its  members  are  officers  of  local 
unions  or  selected  as  representatives  of  them,  and  are  not 
altogether  typical  of  the  rank  and  file.  This  will  be  an 
opportunity  for  you  to  determine  what  sort  of  people  the 
unionists  are.    Note : 

1.  Their  intelligence,  force,  sincerity,  outlook  on 
life  and  society,  ideals,  standards  of  morality,  rights 
and  justice. 

2.  Their  viewpoint.  Is  it  craft,  class,  social,  or  group? 
What  kind  of  group  concepts  have  they? 

3.  Are  they  conservative,  radical,  revolutionary,  ideal- 
istic or  materialistic,  altruistic  or  selfish,  highly  emotional 
or  rational  ? 

4.  Gather  evidence  of  what  they  want  and  how  they 


384  TRADE  UNIONISM 

propose  to  get  it ;  their  problems,  aims,  demands,  methods 
and  attitudes. 
Note  also: 

1.  The  nature  of  Unionism  and  general  characteristics 
of  the  movement.  Is  it  narrowly  economic,  or  broadly 
political,  ethical,  social,  etc.  ? 

2.  What  is  its  viewpoint  and  spirit?  Narrow  group, 
class  or  social?  Evidence?  Is  it  characterized  by  unity 
and  solidarity  or  by  narrow  factionalism?  Evidence? 
Is  it  altruistic  or  selfish,  forceful  or  futile;  characterized 
by  intense  prejudice  and  moved  by  emotionalism,  or  open- 
minded  and  rationalistic?  Democratic  or  the  reverse? 
Revolutionary  or  conservative?  Two  bases  on  which 
democratic  or  antidemocratic  character  must  be  judged? 

3.  What  are  its  educational  and  informational  quali- 
ties? Compare  the  information  of  unionists  and  univer- 
sity students  on  current  affairs.  The  meeting  is  the 
means  of  great  dissemination  of  information,  for  the 
delegates  carry  back  what  they  hear  to  100,000  members. 

4.  What  functional  types  are  represented? 

5.  What  is  unionism  anyhow? 

These  various  meetings  will  help  us  gradually  to  build 
up  our  conception  of  what  unionism  is.  Different  students 
will  get  different  evidence  and  also  get  the  same  evidence 
from  different  angles.  By  analyzing  this  evidence  under 
the  heads  of  the  nature  of  the  union  group,  the  nature  of 
the  union  personnel,  and  the  nature  of  the  union  program, 
we  shall  get  our  zirJiat  of  unionism.  Then  it  will  be  for 
us  to  attempt  to  interpret  this,  especially  the  program,  which 
will  give  us  our  zvhy  of  unionism.  I  think  you  will  agree 
before  we  get  through  that  this  is  the  only  way,  but  like 
all  things  worth  while  it  is  the  hard  way. 

Meetings  like  this  are  valuable  to  put  us  in  touch  with 
the  actual  union  movement.  They  give  us  a  feeling  of 
reality  of  the  subject  of  study.  The  possibilities  of  these 
meetings  are  uncertain.    There  is  likely  to  be  little  discus- 


APPENDIX  I  385 

sion,  hence  little  chance  to  estimate  or  judge  different  types 
of  men  or  conflicts  of  ideals  and  interests  within  the  group. 
Possibly  there  may  be  a  false  appearance  of  unity  and  en- 
thusiasm. However,  there  may  be  speeches  voicing  the 
concrete  longings,  troubles  and  strivings  of  unionists,  and, 
therefore,  putting  us  in  touch  with  current  things.  Talk 
to  the  men  and  officers  if  the  opportunity  offers  itself. 
Considerable  time  and  experience  are  required  to  judge 
them,  but  get  acquainted  and  begin  to  judge. 

One  most  important  thing  in  connection  with  the  work  we 
are  trying  to  do  which  we  have  not  emphasized  thus  far 
is  that  nothing  worth  while  can  come  out  of  work  of  this 
character  apart  from  the  determination  on  the  part  of  each 
one  of  you  to  put  the  very  best  of  himself  into  it  in  the  way 
of  good,  hard,  persistent,  consistent,  independent  thinking. 
This  work  will  amount  to  nothing  unless  you  make  of  this 
thing,  unionism,  a  serious  personal  problem  and  determine 
to  think  yourself  through  to  a  series  of  vital  conclusions. 
These  facts  which  you  get  from  the  field  work  and  the  read- 
ings are  absolutely  worthless  unless  you  get  down  seriously 
and  dig  the  significance  out  of  them.  The  facts  as  mere 
facts  will  not  do  you  any  good.  They  will  soon  be  forgotten. 
It  is  what  they  mean  in  terms  of  the  character  of  unionism 
and  social  welfare  that  is  important.  This  meaning  you 
cannot  get  by  merely  listening  to  what  I  say  of  them,  or 
repeating  them  to  me ;  nor  if  you  regard  the  facts  as  in- 
trinsic bits  of  information  to  be  stored  away,  or  the  work 
as  mere  task  work  to  be  done  well  enough  to  satisfy  me. 

Only  if  you  yourself  get  a  clear  understanding  of  their 
meaning  by  your  own  hard  effort  will  they  be  of  any  last- 
ing value  to  you.  You  must  yourselves  get  at  them  and 
squeeze  the  last  essence  of  significance  out  of  them.  And 
do  not  have  it  in  mind  that  you  must  agree  with  me.  I 
do  not  care  what  your  conclusions  are.  What  I  want  is 
evidence  that  you  have  put  your  soul  into  the  work,  that 
you  h^ve  not  been  passive,  that  you  have  been  intensely; 


386  TRADE  UNIONISM 

active,  that  these  things  have  meant  something  serious  to 
you,  that  you  have  brought  all  your  faculties  and  all  your 
experience  to  bear  upon  them  in  the  effort  to  analyze,  or- 
ganize, and  interpret  them.  If  you  have  not  the  time  to 
do  all  the  reading  and  thinking  I  ask,  do  the  thinking.  In 
my  opinion,  an  hour  of  good  hard  thinking  is  worth  more 
than  twenty  hours  of  reading  just  to  get  over  the  ground. 
I  would  rather  have  a  paper  that  showed  one  flash  of  real 
insight  than  the  most  elaborate  and  finished  piece  of  copy- 
ing or  mere  stringing  together  of  information.  The  trained 
man,  the  educated  man,  is  the  one  who  has  learned  to  grasp 
a  problem  in  the  complexity  of  facts,  and  see  the  relation 
of  the  facts  to  the  problem,  to  separate  the  significant 
from  the  merely  incidental,  to  probe  for  hidden  meanings, 
to  marshal  evidence  for  a  definite  conclusion.  He  is  the 
man  who  is  going  to  do  things  in  life.  I  want  the  work 
to  be  training  to  this  end.  I  want  you  to  throw  yourselves 
into  the  work  in  this  spirit.  Think  out  the  meaning  of 
things.     Never  mind  the  outcome. 

Research  Methods 

Success  in  research  is  preeminently  an  individual  mat- 
ter. No  definite  rule  or  method  can  be  laid  down  that  will 
insure  success.  Each  person  must  work  out  his  own  pe- 
culiar method.  Every  different  research  problem  requires 
a  different  method  of  attack  and  system  of  work.  The 
reason  for  generally  poor  results  of  public  research  is  that 
one  stilted  method  is  used.  Research  students  work  me- 
chanically. The  great  essentials  are  personal  qualities, 
the  ability  to  formulate  a  problem,  to  grasp  a  situation  as 
a  whole,  an  analytic  and  synthetic  ability,  insight  and  sug- 
gestive alertness,  selective  ability  or  ability  to  distinguish 
between  the  significant  and  the  insignificant,  ability  to  weigh 
the  evidence,  to  distinguish  between  the  true  and  the  false, 
a  sense  of  proportion,  infinite  patience  in  the  handling  of  de- 


APPENDIX  I  387 

tall,  resourcefulness  and  flexibility  in  overcoming  obstacles 
and  creating  means  to  ends,  staying  power,  ability  to  draw 
together  the  scattered  threads  and  to  construct  a  clear-cut, 
pointed  and  logical  outline  or  medium  for  presentation  of 
results,  ability  to  put  results  into  good,  crisp,  forceful  Eng- 
lish, with  plenty  of  lights  and  shadows  and  emphatic  sum- 
maries. 

Anyone  who  possesses  these  qualities  actually  or  poten- 
tially will  work  out  his  peculiar  and  successful  method  of 
research.  The  most  that  anyone  can  do  for  such  a  person 
is  to  give  him  a  few  hints  that  may  save  him  from  getting 
into  blind  alleys  and  from  wasting  his  time  and  energy. 
These  hints  concern  mainly  the  choice  of  a  subject,  the 
preparation  for  investigation  and  note  taking,  the  taking 
and  filing  of  notes,  the  weighing  of  evidence,  and  the  out- 
lining of  the  thesis  and  the  report. 

A  great  proportion  of  failures  in  research  results  from 
the  improper  choice  of  a  subject.  The  student  takes  a  sub- 
ject because  the  teacher  sees  something  in  it.  This  is  all 
wrong.  No  one  can  do  anything  worth  while  with  a  sub- 
ject unless  he  sees  in  it  something  definite,  vivid,  worth 
while,  a  vital  problem,  a  vital  thing  to  prove  or  disprove. 
He  must  have  a  warm,  drawing  feeling  for  the  thing,  must 
feel  that  there  is  something  great  in  it.  Without  this  the 
work  will  be  pointless,  the  student  v/ill  simply  flounder. 
The  teacher  should  not,  therefore,  choose  for  the  student, 
but  set  the  student  first  to  make  a  choice,  subject  to  the 
teacher's  approval.  The  student  should  never  take  a  sub- 
ject in  which  he  does  not  see  a  definite  nut  to  crack.  There- 
fore, a  man  should  feel  spontaneously  attracted  to  the  sub- 
ject and  consider  it  carefully  for  the  vital  object  of  interest. 
This  is  the  first  essential  step  for  successful  research. 

Every  piece  of  research,  to  be  successful,  requires  that 
it  have  in  view  a  definite  problem  for  solution  and  a  definite 
method  of  attack  upon  that  problem.  And  every  definite 
problem  requires  its  peculiar  method  of  attack  or  research. 


388  TRADE  UNIONISM 

The  determination  of  the  definite  problem  and  the  definite 
method  of  attack  must  precede  the  actual  systematic  inves- 
tigation of  the  facts  and  note  taking,  except  notes  on  the 
nature  of  the  problem,  its  essential  aspects  and  ways  of 
treating  it.  For  not  all  facts  are  of  the  same  importance  or 
value.  Many  have  no  value  at  all  for  any  particular  end 
until  the  problem  and  method  have  been  worked  out  pretty 
clearly.  The  student  up  to  this  time  has  no  basis  for  the 
collection  of  facts,  for  distinguishing  between  what  is  im- 
portant and  unimportant.  Note  taking  before  this,  there- 
fore, will  mean  an  immense  waste  of  time  and  eflfort  in 
accumulating  unimportant  information,  and  will  often  re- 
sult in  the  student  getting  swamped  in  detail  and  utterly 
lost — never  getting  out.  Therefore,  the  first  thing  to  do 
after  the  choice  of  subject  is  settled  is  to  go  definitely  and 
singly  to  work  on  the  particular  nature  of  the  problem 
involved  and  the  methods  of  research  to  solve  it.  This 
means,  unless  the  student  is  already  familiar  with  the  field, 
two  things :  ( I )  Soaking  in  the  general  literature  and  the 
objective  facts  in  the  field ;  soaking  full  of  the  problem 
and  thinking  it  out,  not  to  a  conclusion,  but  as  a  game  to 
be  played,  with  the  sole  object  to  find  the  nut  to  crack 
and  the  way  to  hold  it  and  hit  it,  i.e.,  finding  the  definite 
problem  and  working  out  the  definite  method  of  attack.  (2) 
Doing  a  ton  of  thinking;  here  is  where  the  main  part  of 
your  intellectual  eflfort  comes  in,  where  you  have  to  do 
your  straining.  If  you  get  clearly  oriented  in  these  things 
the  rest  is  comparatively  easy ;  you  will  know  what  you  are 
after,  how  to  select,  how  to  organize.  It  will  be  simply  fol- 
lowing out  a  plan.  But  while  you  are  doing  this  soaking 
and  thinking,  you  do  not  want  to  take  notes  except  on  a 
question  of  problem  and  method — no  fact  notes;  you  have 
not  your  basis  for  selection — and  if  you  do  you  will  waste 
an  immense  amount  of  time  and  effort. 

When  you  have  soaked  and  thought  your  way  through 
jjo  a.  definite  understanding  of  your  problem  and  methoci 


APPENDIX  I  389 

then  make  out  your  outline  for  research,  your  questiosnnaire 
or  whatever  you  call  it,  to  direct  your  specific  investigation 
and  to  classify  your  notes.  Then,  not  till  then,  are  you 
ready  for  the  actual  systematic  research  and  note  taking 
or  filing.  This  preliminary  soaking  has  another  vital  pur- 
pose that  will  come  out  later. 

All  this  soaking  and  thinking  before  the  actual  investiga- 
tion is  entered  upon  may  seem  at  first  sight  something 
you  have  no  time  to  do,  but  if  rightly  done  it  will  save  an 
immense  amount  of  time  and  effort  in  the  end.  It  not  only 
guards  against  taking  worthless  notes,  but  guards  against 
being  swamped  in  undigested  details  at  the  end;  insures 
that  all  through  the  work  you  know  exactly  where  you  are, 
and  that  everything  you  do  is  definitely  pointed  to  a  definite 
end.  Your  knowledge  is  systematized  all  the  while,  you 
are  proceeding  systematically  toward  definite  conclusions, 
and  when  your  research  is  over,  you  have  simply  to  draw 
your  threads  together  into  an  orderly  whole,  present  the 
evidence  in  an  orderly  way,  and  draw  your  conclusions. 

The  prime  object  is  to  have  each  note  so  that  one  can 
refer  to  it  instantly  and  can  keep  the  whole  situation  fresh 
in  mind.  Mechanical  matters  generally  mean:  (i)  a  filing 
outline;  (2)  a  filing  case,  guide  cards;  (3)  small  sheets  to 
discourage  too  much  volume — many  notes  are  best  simply 
as  page  references;  (4)  only  one  point  on  a  sheet;  (5) 
careful  reference  at  bottom;  (6)  key  at  top;  (7)  kept  filed 
as  far  as  possible.  The  dangers  are  too  much  mechanism, 
dilettantism,  and  being  swamped  in  complexity;  the  sim- 
plest form  for  the  purpose  is  best. 

Of  course,  all  this  will  not  get  you  anywhere  if  you  do 
not  know  how  to  judge  and  weigh  evidence.  My  experience 
is  that  almost  all  evidence  is  partisan.  From  fifty  to  ninety- 
five  per  cent  of  what  you  get  as  facts  in  books  and  in  the 
field  are  attempts  to  mislead,  or  pure  misinformation;  in 
any  case,  false.  Moreover,  the  facts  are  of  great  inequality 
in  importance.     Students  thus  must  know,  first,  how  to 


390  TRADE  UNIONISM 

separate  the  false  from  the  true,  second,  how  to  give  facts 
relative  importance.  The  only  guide  here  is  the  knowledge 
one  possesses,  along  with  his  experience  in  the  judgment  of 
men.  You  have  almost  got  to  know  before  you  can  suc- 
cessfully find  out.  Here  again  comes  in  the  supreme  value 
of  preliminary  soaking  and  thought.  You  must  know  enough 
about  the  whole  situation  and  the  men  in  it  before  you  go  in 
to  gather  facts  so  that  you  can  exercise  sound  judgment,  dis- 
tinguish the  important  from  the  unimportant,  and  know 
which  men  are  misleading.  The  best  success  then  requires 
a  background  of  broad  general  information,  knowledge  of 
men  and  motives,  maturity  and  experience,  and  the  soaking 
for  the  particular  work. 

The  final  step  before  writing  up  is  the  formulation  of  the 
outline  of  treatment.  One  should  never  try  to  write  with- 
out a  general  outline,  but  there  is  danger  in  trying  to  out- 
line minutely  beforehand.  Get  the  general  sweep  of  the 
subject  and  outline  ahead  each  day.  Of  course,  I  need  not 
speak  of  proportion,  emphasis  and  style. 


APPENDIX  II 

STUDENTS'  REPORT  ON  TRADE  UNION 
PROGRAM 

To  get  a  concrete  notion  and  tangible  evidence  of  the 
trade  union  program  or  set  of  programs  the  classes  read 
all  the  trade  union  literature  available,  with  the  idea  of 
gathering  up  all  the  items  and  formulating  them  into  some- 
thing like  a  consistent  whole.  From  the  beginning  of  the 
course  on  trade  unionism  every  member  of  the  class  turned 
in  a  written  report  of  every  labor  meeting  attended  by 
the  class,  every  talk  on  labor  made  to  the  class  by  an 
outsider,  and  every  interview  he  held  with  a  labor  leader. 
In  addition  separate  committees  made  special  studies  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  the  Railroad  Brotherhoods, 
the  Knights  of  Labor  and  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the 
World.  All  the  papers  were  then  reviewed  by  a  com- 
mittee whose  duty  was  to  cull  out  the  aims,  principles  and 
theories,  policies,  etc.,  and  to  organize  them  into  a  sys- 
tematic whole.  This  work  was  done  by  a  number  of  classes, 
each  using  and  building  on  the  results  of  its  predecessors. 

The  following  is  a  preliminary  report  of  the  committee 
of  the  class  on  the  Aims,  Principles  and  Theories,  Policies, 
Demands,  Methods,  and  Attitudes  of  Trade  Unionism. 

I.    Aims 

Expression  of  the  self — personality,  temperament,  group 

philosophy. 
Higher  intelligence  and  capacity  for  enjoyment. 

391 


392  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Looking  to  improved  conditions — more  now. 

Improvement  of  working  conditions,  in  the  matter  of: 

Wages 

Hours 

Safety 

Health 

Security 

Continuity 

Exertion 

Independence  and  personal  dignity 

Supervision  and  control. 
Improvement  of  living  conditions  and  standard  of  living : 

More  just  distribution  of  wealth 

Community  of  wealth  and  industry 

Industrial  democracy 

Uplift  of  the  working  class 

Uplift  of  the  community  as  a  whole 

Obtaining  rights  as  citizens 

Extension  of  democracy 

Self-help. 

II.     Principles  and  Theories 

Essence  of  social  maladjustment  is  the  wage  system. 
Low  wages  cause  of  most  human  ills. 
Unemployment  is  the  result  of  social  conditions. 
Wealth  is  for  the  benefit  of  all,  not  for  a  special  class. 
Everyone  has  a  right  to  what  he  physically  produces. 
Profits  are  robbery;  whole  returns  of  industry  should 

go  to  labor,  which  alone  creates. 
Not  opposed  to  past  unjust  accumulations  but  want 

better  future  adjustment. 
Profits  of  capital  belong  to  labor. 

Common  ownership  of  means  of  production  by  work- 
ers is  inevitable  and  not  far  off. 
Profits  from  improvements  should  go  to  labor. 


APPENDIX  11  3^3 

Need  for  Unionism  based  on  the  present  wage  system. 

To  maintain  wages  all  must  unionize. 
Belief  in  the  wage  fund  theory  (or  lump  of  labor  theory) 
causes  opposition  to : 
Industrial  schools 
Immigration. 
Disbelief  in  the  wage  fund  theory : 

Immigration  creates  a  demand  equal  to  the  productive 

power  which  it  adds. 
Raising  wages  will  simply  increase  the  productive  effi- 
ciency of  employees. 
Labor-Cost  Theory — Labor  alone  the  creator  of  wealth. 
All  workers  are  of  the  same  benefit  to  society,   whether 
skilled  or  unskilled,  and  all  should  therefore  receive 
the  same  wages. 
Higher  wages  do  not  raise  the  price  of  the  product. 
Price  depends  ultimately  on  effective  demand. 
Higher  wages  mean  increased  demand  for  goods. 
Labor  not  a  commodity :  Unions  not  a  monopoly. 
Principles  of  standardization  and  uniformity. 
Identity  of  interests  of  labor  and  capital. 
Cooperation  with  employer  whenever  possible — the  goal. 
Certain  classic  "rights"  of  employers  denied : 

Employer's  right  to  run  his  business  as  he  wishes. 
Employer's  right  to  hire  and  discharge  whomever  and 
whenever  he  pleases. 
Antagonism  of  labor  and  capital. 
Competition  causes  perpetual  and  progressive  increase  of 

poverty. 
Competition  between  man  and  man  is  healthy ;  between  man 

and  machine  it  is  injurious  to  man. 
Competition  unrestricted  makes  unions  necessary. 
Fixed,  absolute,  unchanging  system  of  things. 
Society's  obligation   to  the   worker  to  help  maintain   his 
-  inalienable  rights,  including: 

Right  to  work — right  to  a  job,  a  trade. 


304  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Right  to  organize. 
Right  to  leisure. 
Right  to  an  education. 
Right  to  free  action  vs.  employer. 
Good  of  all  more  important  than  good  of  a  few. 
Organization  is  essential  to  freedom  from  oppression. 
Unionism  does  not  take  away  the  laborer's  freedom. 
Solidarity  of  the  working  classes. 
Injury  to  one  the  concern  of  all. 

Harmony  of  interests  of  all  laborers. 
No  single  trade  organization  capable  of  coping  with 

employers  as  all  combined  are. 
Interests  of  labor  class  are  more   fundamental  than 
those  of  the  craft  group. 
Cheap  workingmen's  hotels,  minimum  wage,  etc.,  simply 
retard  the  one  right  way  of  bettering  things — or- 
ganization. 
A  working  class   organization   should   include   farmers, 

business  men,  etc.,  all  but  large  capitalists. 
Only  workingmen  should  be  enrolled  in  labor  organiza- 
tions. 
Interests  of  own  group  paramount — whether: 
The  trade  or  craft  group,  or 
The  industrial  group,  or 
The  federated  trades  group,  or 
Workers  of  the  world. 
Political  action. 
Might  is  right  (when  Unionists  win). 

Right  and  justice  are  the  rules  of  the  game  of  the 

ruling  class. 
Unions  justified  for  the  good  they  do,  no  matter  how 
great  the  corresponding  damage. 
Ends  justify  the  means. 

Courts  and  law  not  so  bad — only  are  under  the  influence 
of  wealthy  and  powerful  classes. 


APPENDIX  11  395 

III.    Geneil\l  Policies 

As  to  Organization : 

To  organize  to  facilitate  common  action  as  an  economic 
group. 

To  parallel  the  capitalistic  group  in  the  matter  of  or- 
ganization. 

To  include  all  laborers. 

Maintain    mixed    local    assemblies    to    develop    class 

consciousness. 
Opportunistic  organization  to  meet  needs  of  all  labor 
as  may  be  necessary. 

To  organize  the  unskilled. 

To  organize  the  particularly  skilled  worker. 

Limit  the  number  of  members  by  high  dues  and  fees. 
Limit  the  number  of  members  to  those  who  are  most 
efficient. 

To  organize  the  workers  in  a  craft  to  subserve  craft 
interests. 

To  amalgamate  craft  organizations  where  jurisdictional 
conflicts  and  joint  interests  demand. 

To  organize  the  workers  of  allied  trades  to  subserve 
kindred  interests. 

To  organize  the  workers  on  the  basis  of  industries. 

To  maintain  a  national  and  district  organization  to  con 
trol  labor  conditions  in  all  localities  or  localities  hav- 
ing similar  problems. 

To  maintain  a  single  organization. 

To  maintain   a   highly   centralized   organization  to   fur- 
ther efficient  functioning. 

To  maintain     an     autocratic     organization     (successful 
unions). 

To  maintain  a  national  organization   to  protect  crafts 
from  rivals  and  seceders. 

To  retain  sovereignty  in  local  organization. 

To  maintain  local  independence. 


396  TRADE  UNIONISM 

To  maintain  a  democratic  form  of  organization — use  of 

referendum,  etc. 
To  maintain  machinery  for  reducing  internal  friction. 
To  remain  irresponsible,  not  incorporated. 
To  maintain  a  responsible  organization. 
To  maintain  legislative  committees. 
To  maintain  committees  to  further  candidacies  of  trade 

unionists  and  sympathizers. 
To  affiliate  with  labor  parties. 

To  affiliate  opportunistically  with  major  political  parties. 
To  maintain  an  organization  for  mutual  insurance. 
No  affiliation  with  welfare  plans  of  other  groups. 

As  to  Activities: 

To  work  with  the  present  order. 

To  work  against  the  present  order. 

To  check  the  accumulation  and  power  of  wealth. 

To  adhere  to  the  Common  Rule — collective  bargaining. 

To  control  workers  and  conditions : 

Machinery,  tools,  processes  and  improvements 

All  incidents  and  conditions  of  work  and  pay 

Supply  of  labor 

Output,  product,  materials 

The  closed  shop. 
To  use  only  union  made  goods. 
To  act  pragmatically  and  opportunistically,  making  use  of : 

Self-help  only 

Monopoly  and  strategic  position 

Strong  treasury 

Strikes 

Boycott 

Violence  if  necessary 

Methods  "within  the  law" 

Mediation,  arbitration  and  conciliation.  $;, 

To  cultivate  business  relations  with  the  employer. 
To  develop  a  good  reputation  for  business-like  methods. 


APPENDIX  II  397 

To  comply  strictly  with  all  contract  provisions. 
To  maintain  efficiency  and  high  moral  character. 
To  encourage  industrial  education. 
To  develop  and  use  public  opinion. 
To  abolish  the  present  wage  system. 
To  establish  industrial  democracy. 
To  use  direct  action : 
Sabotage 
General  Strike 
Violence. 
No  respect  for  contracts. 

State  socialism  and  any  measure  pointing  that  way. 
To  discountenance  violence. 
To  exploit  labor  or  social  groups. 
To  use  any  method  in  a  pinch. 
To  abstain  from  partisan  political  action. 
To  use  the  ballot  independently. 
To  control  administration  of  government  for  trade  union 

purposes. 
To  use  legal  rights  and  processes. 
To  use  a  definite  political  program. 
To  use  no  political  action. 
To  educate  and  uplift  the  union  personnel. 
To  subordinate  class,  race  and  creed  differences  to  eco- 
nomic unity. 

IV.    Demands 
From  the  Employer: 

Recognition  of  the  union. 

Standard  rate  of  wages. 

Higher  wages. 

No  reduction  of  wages. 

Extra  pay  for  holidays  and  Sundays. 

Extra  pay  for  overtime. 

Extra  pay  for  extraordinary  work. 

Extra  pay  for  objectionable  work. 

Extra  pay  for  night  work. 


39S  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Extra  pay  for  split  shifts. 

Pay  for  idle  time  on  duty. 

Pay  for  walking  time. 

Equal  pay  for  men  and  women. 

No  bonus  or  premium  system. 

No  profit  sharing. 

Abolition  of  sliding  scale. 

Definite  place  of  payment. 

Payment  of  special  expenses  when  engaged  in  spe- 
cial work. 

Abolition  of  truck  system. 

Abolition  of  payment  by  check. 

Free  tools  and  necessary  work-clothing. 

Free  power. 

Definite  price  for  working  materials  furnished  by 
worker. 

Weekly  payment. 

The  normal  day. 

The  eight-hour  day,  with  no  wage  reduction. 

Definite  noon  and  rest  hours. 

Definite  beginning  and  ending  hours. 

Half  holiday  on  Saturday. 

One  day's  rest  in  seven. 

Observance  of  Labor  Day. 

No  overtime. 

No  split  shifts. 

Time  work. 

No  piece  work. 

Abolition  of  "rushers"  and  "speeders." 

Union  shop. 

Closed  shop. 

Preferential  shop. 

No  use  of  nonunion  materials  or  machinery. 

Abolition  of  foot  power. 

No  scientific  management. 

No  changes  in  classification. 


APPENDIX  II  ^99 

No  unregulated  change  in: 

Character  or  quality  of  work 

Machinery  or  processes 

Grouping  of  workers. 
Participation  in  the  increased  profit  from  new  ma- 
chinery. 
Limitation  of  machinery  to  be  tended. 
No  subcontract. 
No  sweatshop  work. 
Protection  against  occupational  diseases. 
Sanitary  shops,  in  respect  to: 

Ventilation 

Lighting 

Humidity 

Heat 

Water  supply 

Cloak  rooms 

Rest  rooms 

Toilet  rooms. 
Safety  devices  and  appliances. 
Efficient  fire  protection. 
Abolition  of  company  home. 
Abolition  of  child  labor  and  night  labor. 
Prohibition  of  certain  work. 
Recognition  of  jurisdictional  claims. 
Representation  on  the  job. 

Prohibition  of  casual  work  for  regular  workmen. 
Regulation  of : 

Hiring  and  discharging 

Fining  and  docking 

Promotion 

Mode  of  doing  work 

Enforcement  of  agreements 

Settlement  of  disputes 

Tools  and  Machinery 

Materials 


400  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Processes 

Apprentices 

Number    of    helpers,    boy    laborers    and    women 

workers. 
Legislative  demands : 

Restriction  of  immigration. 

Abolition  of  Asiatic  immigration. 

Abolition  of  convict  contract  labor. 

Abolition  of  all  forms  of  involuntary  servitude. 

Prohibition  of  immigration  of  contract  labor. 

Abolition  of  sweatshop. 

Abolition  of  child  labor. 

Abolition  of  truck  payments. 

Compulsory  school  attendance  until  sixteen  years  of 

age. 
Minimum  wage  laws  for  women. 
Restriction  of  women's  work. 
Eight-hour  law  for  women. 
One  day's  rest  in  seven. 
Efficient    factory   inspection. 
Prevention  of  stop-watch,  high-speed  schemes. 
Employers'  liability. 
Workmen's  compensation. 
Old  age  pensions. 

Abrogation  of  common-law  defenses  for  employers. 
Removal  of  unjust  technicalities  and  law's  delays. 
Equality  of  capital  and  labor  before  the  law. 
Election  of  all  judges. 
Limitation  of  power  of  judges. 
Regulation  of  contempt  proceedings. 
Abolition  of  use  of  injunction  in  labor  disputes. 
Prohibition  of  use  of  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Act  in 

labor  disputes. 
Abolition  of  private  detective  agencies. 
Prevention  of  the  use  of  police  and  militia  in  labor 

disputes. 


APPENDIX  ir  401 

No  nonresidents  to  act  as  deputy-sheriffs  or  police 

in  labor  disputes. 
No  compulsory  arbitration  or  investigation. 
Voluntary  arbitration. 
Conference  with  employers. 
Initiative  and  referendum. 
Imperative  mandate  and  recall. 
Public  as  against  private  welfare  plans. 
Public  as  against  private  industrial  education. 
Federal  appropriations  for  trade  schools. 
Free  and  uniform  textbooks. 
Abolition  of  private  employment  bureaus. 
Woman  suffrage. 

Free  speech  and  freedom  of  the  press. 
Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics. 
Bureaus  of  labor  safety. 
Museum  of  safety. 
Federal  bureau  of  health. 
Public  baths. 
Public  playgrounds. 
Workingmen's  lyceums  and  libraries. 
Municipal  ownership. 
Public  ownership  of  railroads,  telephones,  telegraphs 

and  natural  monopolies. 
Right  of  petition  for  government  employees. 
Citizenship  for  Porto  Ricans. 
Marine  Laws. 
Graduated  income  tax. 
Inheritance  tax. 
Land  held  for  speculative  purposes  to  be  taxed  to 

its  full  value. 

V.     Methods 

Organization  and  use  of  organizers. 
Collective  bargaining. 


402  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Legislation. 

Arbitration. 

Increased  membership. 

High  moral  requirements  for  membership. 

High  apprenticeship  requirements. 

Limitation  of  number  of  apprentices. 

Salaried  officers. 

Control  of  union  by  small  group. 

Prohibition  of  needless  dual  organization. 

Cooperation  with  allied  unions. 

Fight  competing  unions. 

Cooperation  in  demands. 

Coterminous  contracts  for  allied  crafts. 

War  chest. 

Strikes. 

General  strike. 

Intermittent  strike. 

Sympathetic  strike. 

Boycott. 

Picketing. 

Violence. 

Intimidation  of  employers. 

Intimidation  of  scabs. 

Sabotage. 

Merciless  punishment  of  those  who  fall  out  of  line 
with  machine  in  power. 

Buttons  and  insignia. 

"We  don't  patronize"  and  unfair  lists. 

Use  of  union  label. 

Strike  defense  fund. 

Closed  shop. 

Union  shop. 

Preferential  shop. 

Political  action — watch  and  publish  records  of  leg- 
islators. 

Publicity  through ; 


APPENDIX  II  403 

Observance  of  Labor  Day 

Official  publications 

Lectures 

Sending  children  away  from  strike  districts 

Opening  reading  rooms  where  their  literature  may 
be  obtained. 
Educational  work  through : 

Union  trade  schools 

University  extension 

Night  schools 

Vocational  education 

Apprenticeship  system  and  control  of  apprentices 

Emotional  appeals  to  public 

Education  of  the  public 

Inconvenience  of  the  public 

Labor  press. 
Social  Ostracism. 
Special  aid  to  employers. 
Friendly  conferences  with  employers. 
Union  employment  agencies. 
Discipline  of  members. 
Discipline  of  employers. 
Low  initiation  fees  and  dues. 
High  initiation  fees  and  dues. 
Clearance  cards. 

Increasing  financial  centralization. 
Democratic  procedure. 
Mutual  aid  and  insurance : 

Sick  benefits 

Death  benefits 

Tool  insurance 

Old-age  pensions 

Homes  for  aged 

Out  of  work  benefits 

Strike  benefits 

Victimization  benefits. 


404  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Cooperative  enterprises. 
Lobbying  and  corrupt  politics. 
Injunctions  and  legal  aid. 
Commissions  and  investigating  committees. 
Grievance  Boards. 
Regular  union  meetings. 
Moral  suasion. 

Control  through  superior  competence  and  efficiency 
of  union  labor. 

VI.    Attitudes  * 

A.  Questioning  fundamental,  accepted  social  standards. 

"Moral  and  industrial  worth,  not  wealth,  the  stand- 
ard of  human  greatness." 

Philosophical  rights  are  incomprehensible. 

"Property  rights  are  not  rights  but  privileges." 

Loyalty  to  the  group  more  fundamental  than  prop- 
erty rights. 

Labor  is  right  and  just  always.  All  opposed  to  labor 
is  wrong  and  unjust. 

"Physical  power  the  motive  force  of  everything; 
might  is  right." 

B.  Questioning  the  present  organization  of  society. 

I.  Economic:  , 

"The  capitalist  performs  no  useful  work." 
"The  capitalist  is  on  your  back;  he  furnishes  the 
mouth,  you  the  hands;  he  consumes,  you  pro- 
duce.   That  is  why  he  runs  largely  to  the  stom- 
ach and  you  to  hands." 
"In  capitalistic  society  the  working  man  is  not  a  man 
at  all ;  he  is  bought  in  the  open  market  the  same 
as  hair,  hides,  and  other  forms  of  merchandise." 
*A  large  number  of  these  are  direct  quotations  from  union 
leaders,  meetings,  or  books.    Others  are  a  summary  of  attitudes 
^s  seen  by  members  of  the  class. 


APPENDIX  II  405 

"Increasing  specialization  of  industry  wrong,  for  tiie 
benefit  of  the  capitalists  only." 

"United  States  capitalism  the  rottenest  in  the  world." 
!.     Political : 

"The  government  does  not  represent  the  people  faith- 
fully." 

"Majorities  do  not  make  governments :  the  financial 
plutocrats  of  this  country  are  a  minority  more 
powerful  than  all  its  voters,  because  of  their 
economic  power.     They  are  its  real  voters." 

"Labor  has  no  protection — the  weakest  are  devoured 
by  the  strong.  All  wealth  and  all  power  center  in 
the  hands  of  the  few,  and  the  many  are  their 
victims." 

"Labor  has  no  reason  to  be  patriotic;  the  capitalists 
own  the  country." 

"Courts  and  law  are  not  so  bad — only  they  are  under 
the  influence  of  the  capitalist  class." 

Justice  and  law  are  not  the  same  for  all. 

"To  hell  with  the  courts"  (hatred  and  suspicion  of 
them). 

Capital  punishment  is  brutal  and  ineffective  in  pre- 
venting crime. 
Social  (criticism  of  other  social  groups  and  movements)  : 

"The  Church  and  the  State — the  great  pillars  of  the 
capitalists  and  of  capitalistic  society." 

"Religious  publishing  houses — the  worst  enemy  to 
organized  labor." 

"The  ministers  do  not  give  a  damn  for  labor." 

"Militarism  is  the  tool  of  the  wealth  interests." 

"Immigration  is  more  dangerous  than  an  invading 
army." 

"Newspapers  are  at  the  beck  and  call  of  the  capi- 
talists.    The  public  press — the  tool  of  capital." 

"Bankers,  lawyers  and  gamblers  are  parasites  on  so- 
ciety." 


4o6  TRADE  UNIONISM 

Large  fortunes  are  all  wrong. 
C.     Labor  Welfare : 

*'There  is  no  silver  lining  to  the  clouds  of  darkness 
and  despair  settling  down  on  the  world  of 
labor." 

Nonunion  labor  is  under-paid  and  over-worked. 

"Workers  are  wage-slaves." 

"Labor  power  is  not  a  product ;  it  is  flesh  and  blood, 
brain  and  brawn ;  it  is  the  human  power  to 
produce." 

"Self-denial  and  saving  are  not  virtues  for  the  work- 
ers but  should  be  condemned." 

"The  contented  workman  is  a  pitiable  object.  Think 
of  a  smile  in  chains !" 

The  employer's  gift  to  charity  or  "welfare"  is  a  con- 
fession of  unearned  interest  or  profits ;  increase 
the  wage. 

"There  can  be  no  peace  so  long  as  hunger  and  want 
are  found  among  millions  of  working  people." 

"The  labor  movement  is  the  hope  of  the  world." 

"Unionists  are  not  theorists;  unionism  is  an  emi- 
nently practical  thing." 

The  trade  union  comprises  the  most  intelligent  sec- 
tion of  the  working  class. 

"We  have  everything  to  gain  and  nothing  but  our 
chains  to  lose." 

"We  don't  need  capitalists  as  guardians  of  capital — 
we  can  do  that  ourselves." 

"All  that  is  not  for  labor  is  against  it." 

"Those  who  'kick'  without  reason  are  better  than 
those  who  do  not  'kick'  at  all." 

"No  strike  of  wealth-producers,  whatever  the  cir- 
cumstances, is  unjustified,  is  without  motive 
cause,  so  long  as  such  a  strike  is  aimed  at  the 
citadels  of  the  employing  class  and  their  out- 
posts " 


APPENDIX  II  407 

*'Can't  blame  a  man  for  not  working  if  he  can't  get 

a  decent  living  out  of  it." 
Lists  used  by  unions  all  right;  those  used  against 

them  all  wrong. 
"The  workers  are  damn  fools  if  they  don't  take  what 

they   want  when   they  can't  get  it  any   other 

way." 
"Public  opinion  of  slight  weight  in  aiding  workers' 
\  struggles." 

"What  the  hell  do  we  care  about  facts?     We  will 

win  if  we  have  the  power  and  not  because  of 

the  facts." 
"Grab  the  world." 

D.  The  Laborer  and  the  Employer : 

"Not  every  employer  is  a  horned  monster." 

Employers  can  meet  with  workers  on  a  basis  of  jus- 
tice to  both. 

"Contracts  with  the  employer  should  be  lived  up  to." 

"Employers  are  hard-hearted ;  won't  arbitrate.  This 
proves  that  the  employer  is  not  as  good  as  the 
unionist." 

Employers  are  parasites. 

Employers  are  always  wrong. 

"Contracts  with  the  employers  are  not  sacred." 

No  attempt  to  get  the  employer's  point  of  view. 

"Every  welfare  plan  has  a  joker  in  it." 

"No  undue  advantage  can  be  taken  of  any  of  our 
employers,  because  they  have  no  rights  that  the 
workers  are  bound  to  respect." 

Strike  is  war,  not  a  relation  between  employer  and 
employees. 

The  employer  is  feared  as  well  as  hated. 

Spirit  of  lockout  is  un-American. 

E.  The  Laborer  and  his  Fellow  Laborer: 
I.     In  the  same  group: 

"Union  workmen  are  the  best  men." 


4o8  TRADE  UNIONISM 

"Competition  for  others  not  for  us.  Rival  organi- 
zations are  futile  and  a  detriment." 

"The  unionist  is  a  traitor  to  unionism  if  he  fails  to 
stand  in  with  fellow  unionists  in  all  policies." 

"We  have  fought  a  good  fight — therefore  we  deserve 
assistance." 

Lack  of  sympathy — inability  to  cooperate — showing 
itself  in  jurisdictional  disputes. 

Unity  on  economic  questions  immediately  affecting 
the  group.  Lack  of  it  on  broad  social  questions, 
even  in  the  same  group. 

Conflict  between  materialistic  majority — "bread  and 
butter  unionists,"  and  the  idealistic  members. 

Class  loyalty  and  brotherhood,  mainly  one  of  catch- 
words ;  internal  suspicion  and  desire  on  the  part 
of  each  to  gain  his  own  ends. 
2.     In  different,  opposed,  or  comj>eting  groups : 

Lack  of  broad  class  consciousness ;  instead  there  is 
small  group  consciousness.  (How  many  union- 
ists use  only  union-label  goods  ?) 

"Trade  unionism — the  bulwark  of  capitalism." 

"The  A.  F.  of  L.  is  not  a  labor  organization ;  it  is 
simply  a  combination  of  job  trusts." 

"Trade  unionism  is  helpless,  impotent,  worn-out,  cor- 
rupt." 

"When  a  man  gets  too  wild  for  the  A.  F.  of  L.  he 
goes  to  the  I.  W.  W. ;  so  the  I.  W.  W.  is  a  good 
thing." 

"In  case  of  foreigners  of  a  low  type  organization 
is  impossible ;  they  are  not  intelligent  enough  to 
see  the  benefits  of  unionism,  are  afraid  of  losing 
their  jobs;  the  general  quality  of  such  groups 
does  not  improve." 

"Socialists — yellow  dogs." 

"A  man  is  a  scab  when  he  gets  in  the  way  of  your 
job,  no  matter  how  badly  he  needs  the  money." 


APPENDIX  II  409 

*'The  scab  is  a  traitor," 

"Rival  unionists  are  scabs.  One  set  of  union  men 
was  characterized  by  the  leader  of  another  union 
group  whose  jobs  the  former  were  taking  when 
the  latter  were  striking,  as,  'The  vilest  creatures 
that  disgrace  the  earth  upon  which  they  crawl.'  " 
3.     The  rank  and  file  and  the  leaders : 

"Union  leaders  are  competent  and  are  doing  their 
best  for  us." 

"Union  leaders  are  czars,  self-seeking,  and  danger- 
ous." 

The  rank  and  file  hesitated  to  pay  a  dollar  to  "them 
guys." 

"You  can't  trust  a  business  agent  when  he  gets  his 
feet  under  the  mahogany  table  with  the  em- 
ployers." 

**When  I  pick  up  a  capitalist  newspaper  and  read  a 
eulogy  to  some  labor  leader,  I  know  that  that 
leader  has  at  least  two  afflictions :  the  one  is 
mental  weakness,  and  the  other  is  moral  coward- 
ice— and  the  two  go  together." 

"Men's  unions  have  bosses ;  women's  do  not." 


INDEX 


Absolutistic   concept   of   soci- 
ety, 212 
effect  of,  on  legal  status  of 
labor  group,  232 

Amalgamated  Association  of 
Iron,  Tin,  and  Steel 
Workers  of  North  Amer- 
ica, 42 

Amalgamated  Association  of 
Street  and  Electrical  Em- 
ployees of  America,  42 

Amalgamated  craft  union,  42 

Amalgamated  Glass  Workers' 
International  Association 
of  America  Membership, 

43 
Amalgamated     Meat     Cutters 
and    Butchers    Workmen 
of  North  America,  42 
Amalgamated      Sheet      Metal 
Workers'        International 
Alliance,   jurisdiction   of, 
42 
American   Federation   of   La- 
bor, 87,   88,   90,  93,    105, 
116,  117,  118,  120. 
a  business  organization,  336 
causes  of  success,  132 
comparison  with   K.  of  L., 

103 
contests  in,  117,  63 
convention,  128 


American   Federation   of  La- 
bor, councils,  121 
delegates,    129 
departments,  122 
direction    of    the    develop- 
ment of,  the,  160 
executive  council,  131 
failures,   133 
fraternal  bodies,  129 
functional   federative  units, 

126 
industrial  unionism  in,  1 04, 1 54 
injunction  and,  234 
internal  development,  104 
the  international,  113 
the  local,  116 
objects  of,  131 
organic  character,  128 
quasi    industrial    federation 

in,  43 
referendum  in,  181 
Socialism  in,  164,  171 
sovereignty  in,  90,  128 
strength,  131,  201 
structure,   112 
American     labor     movement, 

104,  160 
American  Labor  Union,  105 
American  Railvi^ay  Union,  105, 

158 
American    Society    of    Engi- 
neers, 297 


411 


412 


INDEX 


American  Syndicalist  League, 

70,  163,  172 
American  workmen,  146,  148, 

155,  159,  173 
Anarchism,  social  theory,  361 
Anarchistic  unionism,  49 
aims  and  methods,   166 
theory  of  militant  minority, 
169 
Anarchistic  unionists,  164 
Anti-Boycott  League,  190 
Apprenticeship,  79,  83 
neglect  of,  322 
reasons  for,  292,  294 
restoration,  325 
Apprenticeship    and    machin- 
ery, 220 
Arbitration,  264,  374 
Assumptions,     classical     eco- 
nomic, 360 
of  Employers'  Associations, 

195 
of  Knights  of  Labor,  93 
progressive-uplift,  368 
of  Revolutionary  unionism, 

164 
of     scientific     management, 

311,  330 
of  Socialist  theory,  364 
underlying  the  law,  212,  245 
of  unionists,  284 

Baltimore  Tailors,  82 

Baltimore  Typographical  So- 
ciety, 82 

Blacklist,  legality  of,  236 

Boot  and  Shoe  Workers' 
Union,  274 

Boycott,  legality  of,  236 


Briand,  Aristide,  167 

Bridge  and  Structural  Iron 
Workers,  51,  158,  162 

British  Trades  Union  Con- 
gress, 129 

Brotherhood  of  Locomotive 
Firemen,  106 

Brotherhood  of  Painters,  Dec- 
orators and  Paperhangers, 
129 

Brotherhood  of  Railway 
Bridgemen,  107 

Brotherhood  of  Railway  Car- 
men, 107 

Brotherhood  of  Railway 
Trackmen,  107 

Brotherhood  of  Railway 
Trainmen,  107 

Buck's  Stove  and  Range  case, 
injunction  in,  234 

Building  Trades  Department,. 
122 

Building  trades,  interpretation 
of  agreements,  271 

Burns,  John,   167 

Business  agent,  182 
reason  for,  291 

Business  agents,  board  of,  121, 
122 

Business  unions,  contracts, 
274 

Business  unionism,  45,  336 
means  to  success  in  bargain- 
ing, 190 

Business  unionist,  185 

Canadian   Trades   and   Labor 

Congress,  129 
Cedar  Rapids  Agreement,  106 


f 


INDEX 


413 


Centralizers,  in  revolutionary 

unionism,  167 
Chapel,  119 

Chicago   Employers'   Associa- 
tion,  189 
Chicago  Federation  of  Labor, 
40 
contest  in,  63 
meeting  of,  383 
Chicago  Industrial  Workers  of 

the  World,  49,  164 
Chicago  Team  Owners'  Asso- 
ciation, 189 
Cigarmakers'    Union   of   Chi- 
cago,   116 
City  Central  labor  union,  126 
City  federation,  39 
Class  conflict,  172,  369 
Classes,    modes   of   definition, 

350 
Classical  economic  theory  of 

society,  359 
Clayton  Act,  230,  235 
Closed  shop,  79 
legal  status,  235 
reason  for,  291,  294,  344 
war  on,  191 
Collective    agreements,    legal- 
ity, 236 
Collective  bargaining,  benefits 

to  employers,  258 
,     double-sided  monopoly,  260 
effects  of,  263 
prerequisites  of,  269 
and   scientific    management, 

303,  319 
standards  of  work  and  pay, 

257 
step  toward  control,  274 


Collective  bargaining,  theory, 

255 
wages,  256 
work  and  pay,  257 
Communist  manifesto,  364 
Competition,  between  workers, 
286,  288 
control  of,  288ff 
effect  on  workers,  256 
effects  in  England,  243,  332 
under     scientific     manage- 
ment, 323 
union  remedy,  13 
of  unskilled,  97,  346 
Compound  craft  union,  42 
Compulsory  arbitration,  264 
Concepts  of  i8th  century  phi- 
losophy, 247 
Concepts  of  society,  212 

revolutionary,  250 
Conciliation,  264 
Concurrent  variations  of  type, 
55,  62 
explained  by,  67 
Conspiracy,  229,  248 
Constitution    of    the    United 

States,  249 
Consumers,  the,  368 
Contests,  A.  F.  of  L.  and  K. 
of  L.,  103 
business    unionists    and    so- 
cialists, 186 
craft  and  industrial  unions, 

117 
in  I.  W  .W.,  142,  153 
needs  for  settlement,  374 
rank   and   file   leaders,    178, 

179 
in  unions,  source,  63 


414 


INDEX 


Contract,  legality,  225 
individual  legality,  236 
.mviolability  practiced,  274 
liability  for,  230 

Control,  lack  of,  in  I.  W.  W., 

147 
problem  of  unionism,  30 
of  convention  of  A.  F.  of 

L.,  129 
of  unionism,  19 
Councils,  local  and  district,  121 
Courts,  power  of,  to  make  law, 

237 
effect  of  failure  to  under- 
stand workers,  231 
interpreters,  218,  235 
power    over    workers,    233, 
236 
Craft  knowledge,  loss  of,  321, 
322,  346 
remedy  for  loss  of,  324 
Craft  union,  defined,  38 
Craft   unions,    characteristics, 
88 
common  interests,  96 
history,   82 
Crafts  or  trades  union,  39 
Craftsmen,  skilled,  348 

Debs'  American  Railway  Un- 
ion,  106 
Decentralizers,  142 

social  theories,  167 
Delegates,  A.  F.  of  L.,  128,  129 

engineers,  107 
Democracy  in  unions,  169,  181 
Departments,  122 

industrial  federations,  43 
Dependent  unionism,  51 


Detroft  I.  W.  W.,  49,  164 
Direct  action,  167 
Direct  actionists,  145 
District  assembly,  K.  of  L.,  89 
District  industrial  union,  41 
Division  of  labor,   effects  on 
work«rs,  243 

Economic  aims  of  unions,  284 

methods,  288 

outline,  287 

of  unionism,  282 
Education,  industrial,  193,  325 
Efficiency  payment,  289 
Efficiency    methods     of    pay- 
ment, 321,  344,  347 
Eighteenth     century     philoso- 
phy, 247 

in  America,  79,  249 
Emerson,  Harrington,  296 
Employers'  associations,  188 

aims  and  policies,  190 

assumptions,   195 

conciliatory,  202 

methods,  190 

militant   development,    202 

paralleling   union  organiza- 
tion, 189 

tendencies,  204 

their  problem,  201 

and  unionism,  204 
Employers,  claim  of  rights  of, 
200 

greater  bargaining  strength, 
cause  of,  221,  256 

liability  of,  226 

militant,  point  of  view,  199 

restrictions  on,  258,  289 

rights  of,  24Q 


INDEX 


415 


Employers,  union  estimate  of, 

258,  284,  337,  345 
Employer  and  worker,  causes 
of  inequality,  221 
economic  situation,  221 
interests  of,  79,  94,  198,  284 
legal  relations,  217,  224 
relative    bargaining    power, 

219 
relative  right,  297 
relations  in  England,  240, 250 
Environment,   8,   65,   66,  358, 

368 
Errors  of  students,  27 
Estey,  J.  A.,  162 
Ethical  standards,  4 

of  the  group,  7 
Evolution,  scientific  and  tele- 

ological,  214 
Evolutionary    concept    of    so- 
ciety, 212 
Executive  boards,  K.  of  L.,  90 
Executive  committee,  of  A.  F. 
of  L.,  128,  131 
of  engineers,  107,  109 

Federal  Council  of  the  Church- 
es of  Christ,  129 

Federal  Labor  unions,  118 

Federal  trade  local,  116 

Federation  of  American  Rail- 
way Employees,  106 

Federation  of  Organized 
Trades  and  Labor  Unions 
of  U.  S.  and  Canada,  103 

Fixed  group  demand  theory, 
261,  262 

Fraternal  bodies  in  A.  F.  of 
L.,  129 


Free  competition,  250 
Freedom  of  contract,  225 
Frey,  J.  P.,  202 
Functions  of  early  unions,  79 
Functions  of  unionism,  3 
Functional    foremanship,   320, 

321 
Functional  groups,   formation 

of,  357 
Functional  social  groups,  353 

chief  characteristic,  356 

definition,  355 
Functional  type,  defined,  69 
Functional  types,  44,  61 

conflicts,  70 

definition,  61 

essential  aspect  of  unionism, 

55 
variations,  66 
Functional  variants,  existence 
explained,  67 
tests  of  validity,  as  types,  68 

Gantt,  H.  L.,  296 

General  Assembly,  K,  of  L.,  89 

Glass  Bottle  Blowers'  Associ- 
ation of  the  U.  S.  and 
Canada,  113,  274 

Gompers,  Samuel,  23,  133 

Grand  Chief  Engineer,  107, 
108,  109 

Grand  International  Brother- 
hood of  Locomotive  Engi- 
neers, 106 
functions,  no 
mode  of  adjustment,  109 
structure,  107 

Grand  International  Division 
Engineers,  107,  108,  109 


4i6 


INDEX 


Group,  action,  59 
bargaining  strength,  294 
competitive  strength,  291 
demand  theory,  260,  262 
psychological  factors,  66 
standard  of  living,  261 
theories    of    economic    pro- 
gram, 282 
See  also  Social  groups 

Groups,  6,  96,  351 
cause  of,  357 
in  the  law,  216,  232 
purpose  of  study,  206 

Guerilla  unionism,  51,   162 
study  of  program,  282 

Harmony  of  interests,  48,  50, 
95.  195.  198,  247,  330 
classical     economic    theory, 
360 

History  of  unionism  in  U.  S., 
periods,  81 

Hold-up  unionism,  50 

Hours  of  work,  225 

Illinois  Coal  Operators,  189 

Illinois  Manufacturers'  Asso- 
ciation, 189 

Illinois    State    Federation    of 
Labor,  40,  127 

Incorporation,  190 

Increased  efficiency,  effect  of, 
on  workers,  262,  339 
effect  of,  on  wages,  337,  339, 
340 

Individual     bargaining,     257, 
286,  287 

Industry,  change  in  conditions 
of,  220 


Industrial  Brotherhood,  86 
Industrial  changes,  effects  on 
workers,  331 
effort  to  control,  288,   290, 

345 
implied  in  time  and  motion 

study,  342 
producing  competition,  257 
reason     for    opposition    to, 

293»  294,  331.  338 
under     scientific     manage- 
ment, 322 

"Industrial     Democrac  y," 
Webb,  254 

Industrial  democracy,  275,  292, 
347,  348 
under      scientific      manage- 
ment, 303,  320 

Industrial       education,       193, 

325 

Industrial  law,  basis  in  Amer- 
ica, 249 

Industrial  local,  117 

Industrial  nationals,  114 

Industrial  organization,  I05n. 

Industrial       organization — ef- 
fect, 167 

Industrial    Railway    organiza- 
tion, 106 

Industrial  Revolution,  245,  249 
steps  in,  241 

Industrial  society,  history  of, 
204 

Industrial  union,  40,  42,  44 

Industrial  unions,  in  A.  F.  of 
L.,  117 

Industrial  unionism,  in  the  A. 
F.  of  L.,  154 
in  the  I.  W.  W.,  153 


INDEX 


417 


Industrial  unionism,  economic 
reasons   for  development, 

97 
Industrial     Workers     of     the 
World,  49,  105,  139 

as  a  social  factor,  145,  155 

causes     of     ineffectiveness, 
148 

character  of,  148 

conflict  of  ideals,  151,  152 

constitution,  144,  145 

financial  control,  147 

financial  resources,  145 

internal  conflict,  142 

leaders,  149 

membership,  139,  172 

origin,  151 

split  in,  63 

syndicalism  in,  153 
Injunction,  216,  233,  234,  236 
Intermittent  strike,  170 
International    Association    of 

Machinists,  42 
International  craft  union,  38 
International  federation,  39 
International  industrial  union, 

41 

International  Seamens'  Union 
of  America,  274 

International  trade  union,  113 

International  Typographical 
Union,  interpretation  of 
agreements,  272 

International  Union  of  Mine, 
Mill  and  Smelter  Work- 
ers, 105 

International  Union  of  the 
United  Brewery  Work- 
men, 104,  113 


Interpretation  of  the  law,  218 
Interpretation  of  unionism,  55 
Interpretations    of    unionism, 

31,  64 
clues  to,  72 
Interstate  coal  operators,  189 

Job,  affected  by  t.  and  m. 
study,  321 

analysis,  308 
Jurisdictional  disputes,   I2i 

adjustment  of,  122,  124 

Kirby,  John,  Jr.,  24 
Knights  of  Labor,  causes  of 
failure,  93,  118 

centralization  in,  90 

compared  with  A.  F.  of  L., 
104 

constitution,  86 

ideal  forms,  41 

program,  47,  91 

structure,  89 

struggle  with  A.  F.  of  L.. 

63.  104 
uplift  unionism,  47 

Labor    class,    constitution    of, 

354 

Labor  contests,  needs  for  set- 
tlements, 374 

Labor  group,  96,  354,  359 

Labor  laws,  373 

Labor  legislation  and  employ- 
ers' associations,  194 

Labor  local,  118 

Labor  movement,  104,  160 

Labor  reforms,  363 

Labor  union,  the,  41 


4i8 


INDEX 


Laisseg  fcdre,  202,   205,   248, 
250,  360,  361 

in  England,  240 
Land  Reform  movement,  84 
Law  in  relation  to  labor,  211 

assumptions,  212,  213,   216, 

245 
causes  of  uncertainty,  218 
characteristics,  215 
a  crystallization,  238,  249 
effect,  on  labor  welfare   in 

England,  239 

on   employers   and   work- 
ers, 223 
failure  in  modern  industrial 

situation,  2^2 
its  limitations,  238 
needed  changes,  251 
series  of  logical  deductions, 

237 
on  strikes,  231 
summary  of  main  features, 

223 
on  unions,  228 
underlying  concepts,  212 
Law,     natural,     in     scientific 

management,  298,  299  note 

3 

Leaders,  and  the  rank  and  file, 

46,  177 
attitude  toward  workers,  179 
in  L  W.  W.,  149 
and   scientific   management, 

329,  333 
source  of  power,  180 
Legislative    boards,    109,    no, 

114 
Limitation  of  numbers,  effect, 

96 


Limitation  of  output,  26,  261, 
263,  292,  345 
of  group,  295 
Local,  the,  n6 
functions,  119 
genesis     and     development, 

120 
variations  in,  118 
Local  assembly,  K.  of  L.,  89 
Local  craft  union,  38,  80,  81, 

82 
Local  industrial  union,  40 
Local  labor  union,  41 
Locomotive  Engineers'  Mutual 
Life  and  Accident  Associ- 
ation, no 
Lodge,  the,  107,  119 
Lump  of  labor  theory,  261 

Machinery,  196 

effect  on  industry,  220 
effects  on  workers,  97,  286, 

331.  338,  339 
in  industrial  revolution,  241 
Machine  hand,  321 
Machine  industry,  94 
Madden,  "Skinny,"  51,  161 
Markets,  factor  in  union  for- 
mation, 8off 
Maxima  and  minima,  251,  370 
Mead,  Prof.  George  H.,  57 
Mediation,  264 
Mercantile  system,  246 
Merged      General      Standing 
Committee  of  Adjustment, 
107,   108,   109 
Metal      Trades      Association, 

card  catalogue,  237 
Metal  Trades  Department,  124 


INDEX 


419 


Method,  in  research,  386 
note  taking,  388 
the  problem,  387 
weighing  evidence,  389 
Method  of  study,  2ff,  376 

personal  contact,  28,  383 
Militant   Employers'   Associa- 
tions,  189 
Mining  Department,  124 
Mixed  district  assembly,  K.  of 

L.,  89 
Modern    Workman,    develop- 
ment, 220,  221,  243 

National  Association  of  Man- 
ufacturers, 189 

National  Brotherhood  of  Op- 
erative Potters,  274 

National     Civic     Federation, 
189,  204 

National  craft  union,  38,  85 

National    Founders'    Associa- 
tion, 193,  195 

National  industrial  union,  41 

National  or  international  fed- 
eration, 39 

National       or       international 
union,  113 

National  Labor  Union,  the,  85 

National  Metal  Trades  Asso- 
ciation, 191,  192,  193,  195 

National  Stove  Founders'  De- 
fense Association,  189 

National  trade  assembly,  K.  of 
L.,  89 

National  trade  unions,  84 
history,  83 
independent  movement,  103 

National  trades  unions,  84 


National  Woman's  Trade 
Union  League  of  Amer- 
ica, 129 

New  England  Workingmen's 
Association,  84 

Newspaper  Publishers'  Asso- 
ciation, 189 

Nonunion  men,  291 

"One  big  union,"  143,  167 

Order  of  Railway  Conductors, 
106 

Order  of  Railway  Telegraph- 
ers, 107 

Organizers,  120 

Orthodox  interpretations  of 
unionism,  64 

Penalization  of  employers, 
reasons  for,  344 

Philadelphia  Carpenters,  82 

Philadelphia  Federal  Society 
of  Journeyman  Cordwain- 
ers,  82 

Philadelphia  Mechanic  s' 
Union  of  Trade  Associa- 
tions, 83 

Picketing,  232 

Piece  work,  opposition  to,  14, 
289 

Pit  committee,  39 

Political  action,  166 

Powderly,  T.  V.,  86,  92 

Predatory  unionism,   49,  161 

Prejudice,  26 

Private  property,  248 
and  the  law,  217 
protection  of,  234 
states'  right  in,  224 


420 


INDEX 


Problem  of  unionism,  2,  9,  36 
essentials  to  solution  of,  20 
popular  solutions,  32 
steps  toward  solution,   10 
solution,  30 

Problem  and  method,  382 

Progressive-uplift   social   the- 
ory, 367 

Proletariat,  the,  i6g 

Property    rights,    in    eye    of 
court,  234 

Protocol,  273,  note  7 

Public,  the,  368,  373 
education  by  Employer  As- 
sociations, 194 

Quasi  anarchistic  unionism,  49, 
164 
aim,  166 

theory  of  militant  minority, 
169 
Quasi  industrial  federation,  43 

Railway  agreements,  interpre- 
tation, 271 

Railway  Brotherhoods,  105,274 
characteristics,  no 
organization  typified  by  en- 
gineers, 107 
reasons   for   success,    in 

Railway    Employees'    Depart- 
ment, 123 

Rank  and  file,  46,  177 

Rationality,  362 

Recognition  of  union,  270,  294 

Referendum,  181 

Reformers,  fault  of,  372 

Representative  bargaining,  294 

Representative  government  in 
industry,  268 


Representatives  on  the  job — 

reasons  for,  291 
Research  method,  383 
Restriction  of  output,  292 

evils  recognized,  337 

See  also  Limitation  of  out- 
put 
Restrictions  on  employers,  258, 

289 
Revolutionary     unionism,    48, 
161 

aims,  methods,  165 

assumptions,  164 

causes  of,  172 

definition,  163 

outlook  for,  174 

strength  of,  171 
Right,  165 

Right  of  eminent  domain,  224 
Right,  to  use  strike,  232 

to  work,  223,  226 
Rights,     absolutistic    concept, 
212 

defined,  27 

of  employers,  195,  249 

industrial  standards,  338 

natural,  359 

social,  196 
source,  199 

summary,  200 

of  workers,  249 

Sabotage,  26 

defined,  162 

in  I.  W.  W.,  144 

raison  d'etre,  170 
Scab,  the,  16 

reasons    for    opposition    to, 
291,  295 


INDEX 


421 


Scientific     management,     296, 
326 
assumptions,  311 
causes    of    workers'    objec- 
tions, 329,  341 
claims  for,  298 
effect  on  unionism,  322 
effect  on  workers,  320 
human  factor,  312 
industrial  democracy,  302 
its  problem,  297,  313 
and  the  job,  308,  321 
labor  claims,  299ff,  299 
means  change,  342ff 
objections  of  workers,  328 
and     productive     efficiency, 

318 
purposes,  326 
relation  to  workers,  317 
scientific  foundation,  304 
solution  of  problem,  324 
and  specialization,  322 
and  task  setting,  316,  321 
time  and  motion  study,  302 
ultimate  effects,  2,22 
undemocratic,  319 
unemployment,  324 
variations,  318 
Scientific     management     and 
unionism,  causes  of  con- 
troversy, 283,  329 
incompatible      ideals,      334, 

341 
Scientific  managers,  306,  309, 

317 
Scientific  spirit,  21,  30 

necessity  for,  22 
Seaman's    employment    book, 
192 


Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law,  190, 

229 
Shop  club,  39,  119 
Smith,  Adam,  248,  362 
Social  betterment,  means  for, 

8,  370 
Social  consciousness,  develop- 
ment, 204 
Social    control    of    unionism, 

19 

by  collective  bargaining,  274 

steps  toward,  30 
Social  ethics,  353 
Social  function  of  I.  W.  W., 

155 
Social  groups,  6,  351 

causes  of,  357 

functional,  353 

in  the  law,  216,  232 

psychology  of,  66 

See  also  Groups 
Social  philosophy,  in  law,  238, 

249 
Social    progress,    method    of, 

375 

Social   psychological   view   of 
unionism,  6 

Social  right,  212 

Social  rights,  200 

Social  standards,  206 

Social  theories,  359 

Social  welfare,  199,  205 

Social  will,  200,  367,  370 
determined  by,  7 

Socialism  and  American  work- 
men, 159 

Socialism  in  American  Feder- 
ation of  Labor,  171,  187 

Socialist  social  theory,  364 


422 


INDEX 


Socialist  theory,  assumptions, 

365 
Socialistic    unionism,    49,    84, 
164 
aims  and  methods,  166 
Socialists  in  unions,  164,  171, 

187 
Society,  concepts  of,  212 
divisions  in,  .355 
its  constitution,  353 
Specialization,     in     industrial 
revolution,  243 
cause  of  opposition  to,  291 
limitation  of,  324 
and  machine  industry,  220 
under      scientific      manage- 
ment, 320,  322,  324 
Speeding  up,  289,  328,  345 
Standard  day's  work,  11 
Standard  of  living,   factor  in 

bargaining,  11 
Standard  of  living  theory,  260 
StandardizativOn,   enforcement, 

344 
reasons  for,  12 
theory  of,  256,  257 
use    in    economic   program, 

288ff 
Standing    General   Committee 

of  Adjustment,  Engineers, 

107,  109 
Standing  Local  Committee  of 

Adjustment,       Engineers, 

107,  109 
State  assembly,  K.  of  L.,  89 
State  councils,  122 
State  federation,  39 
State     federation     of     labor, 

J  27 


Stove  Founders'  Defense  As- 
sociation, 189 
Strikes,  a  cause  of  organiza- 
tion, 120 
Akron,  141 

A.  F.  of  L.,  46,  115,  121 
employers'  associations,  190, 

191,  192 
engineers,  iii 
K.  of  L.,  90,  91,  93 
Lawrence,  140 
legality,  231,  232 
theory  of,  170 
use,  263 
Strikebreakers,  193,  233 
Structural    type,    defined,    61, 
62 
secondary,  55 
Structural  types,  38 

tests  for,  75 
Structural       and       functional 
tvDCS,  relationship,  61,  75, 
88 
Subdistrict,  miners,  41 
Subdivision,     engineers,     107, 

108,  109 
Sublocals,  39 
Switchmen's  Union  of  North 

America,  107 
Sympathetic  strikes,  illegality, 

232 
Syndicalism,  49 
causes,   158 
and      industrial      unionism, 

156 
in  L  W.  W.,  153 
in  the  United  States,  154 
Syndicalist    League,    70,    163, 
172 


INDEX 


4^3 


Syndicalist  social  theory,  36511. 
System  federation,  124 

Taylor,  F.  W.,  2g6{i 
explanation  of  imion  opposi- 
tion, 330,  334 
generalization  on  unionism, 
340 

Tests  for  types,  55 

Tests  of  variants  as  types,  68 

Textile  industry,   141 

Theories  of  society,  359 

Temperament,  66,  173 

Time  and  motion  study,  302, 
321,  322,  327 
and  change  in  industry,  322 
chief  function,  321 
diverse  conceptions  of,  304 
effect  on  the  job,  321 
effects  on  labor,  311 
extent  of  use,  308 
of  the  human  factor,  309 
involves  change,  342 
and  managerial  function,  308 
in  the   mechanical   process, 

307 

a  method  of  analysis,  306, 
310 

relation  to  scientific  man- 
agement, 304,  327 

tendency  to  break  up  crafts, 
346 

uses,  327 

varying  factors  in  analysis, 

314 

Time-study  man,  314,  315,  316 

Trade  Agreement,  264 
creation,  265,  268 
enforcement,  258,  272 


Trade    agreement,    interpreta- 
tion, 266 

legality,  236 

machinery    for    interpreta- 
tion, 270 

machinery  and  methods,  267 

negotiating  bodies,  268 

parts,  264 

penalties  for  violation,  273 

scope,  265 
Trade  local,  116 
Trade  union,  38 

defects,  121 
Trade  union  objections  to  sci- 
entific management,  328 
Trade  union  aims,  284,  391 
Trade  union  attitudes,  404 
Trade  union  demands,  397 
Trade  union  general  policies, 

395 
Trade    union    principles    and 

theories,  288,  392 
Trade  union  program,  classi- 
fied, 280 
causes,  329 
economic,  282 
formulation,  391 
interpretation,  254,  261 
need    for    further    analysis, 

282 
not  type  pure,  73 
scope  and  character,  35 
a  social  philosophy,  280 
systematization,  279 
Trade  union  problem,  36 
Trade  union  theory,  34,  255 
Trade  unions,  definition,  8 
economic  aims,  284 
legality^  228 


424 


INDEX 


Trade    unions,    legal    status, 
236 
liability,  230,  236 
a  socializing  force,  57 
See  also  Unions 
Trade  unionism,  a  social  ten- 
dency, 59,  358 
dominant  ideals,  330 
essentials      for      successful 

functioning,  341 
popular  interpretations  and 

remedies,  31 
recent  development,  103 
study  of,  iff 
successful  character,  158 
See  also  Unionism 
Trade  unionists,  conception  of 
time  and  motion  study,  305 
first-hand  study  of,  383 
wants  of,  373 
See  also  Unionists 
Trades  councils,  43,  123,  124 
Trades  union,  39 
Trades  unions,  history,  83 
Types  of  Employers'  Associa- 
tions,  189 
Types    of    unionism,    correla- 
tion, 88 
functional,  44 
predominant,  81  ff 
process  of  proof,  55,  y6 
structural,  38 
structural  varieties,  41 
summary,  53 
transitions  in,  43,  44 
Typographical   Society  of   N, 

Y.,  82 
Typographical  Union,  No.  16, 
Chicago,  116 


Underbidding,  prevention,  345 

Uniformity,  principle  of,  257, 
288,  344 

Union,  source  of  specific  char- 
acter, 62 

Union  aims,  284,  391 

Union  attitudes,  404 

Union  demands,  397 

Union  label,   191,  236 

Union  formation,  60 

Union   Label  Trades  Depart- 
ment, 125 

Union  leaders,  and  employers' 
associations,  192 
and    scientific   management, 

333 
Union  methods,  292,  293,  401 
Union  policies,  395 
Union  principles,  288,  392 
Union  problem,  36 
popular  solutions,  32 
solution,  95 
Union  program,  the  scope  and 
character,  35 
economic,  282 
formulation,  391 
Union  theory,  criticism  by  eco- 
nomists, 261,   283 
group  theory,  282 
inconsistent,  255 
Unions,  genesis  of,  60 
legality,  228 
source  of  functions,  79 
See  also  Trade  Unions 
Unionism,    affected   by    scien- 
tific management,  322 
cause  of,  358n. 
charges    against    examined, 
II 


INDEX 


4^5 


Unionism,  clews  to  interpreta- 
tion, 72 
concurrent  functional  varia- 
tions, 55,  62,  e-j 
conditions  for  remedial  ac- 
tion, 18 
conflicting  views  of,   23 
contests  in,  103,  117,  178,  186 
control  of,  19 
democracy  in,  181,  169 
development,  summary,   87 
difficulties  in  study  of,  29 
dominant  type,  336,  344 
dynamic  character,  72 
economic  program,  282 
essential  aspect,  55 
essentials     to     solution     of 

problem,  20 
factors    determining     func- 
tion, 66 
field  of  influence,  255 
first-hand  study,  28 
functions,  assumed,  3 
functional  types,  44 
genesis,  34,  60,  87 
a  group  force,  5 
hypothesis      of      structural 

form,  80 
hypothesis  of  study,  36,  54 
influence  on  workers,  125 
interpretations  of,  64 
judgment  of,  10,  17 
leaders  in,  179 
method  of  study,  2,  2t,  30, 

36 
nature  of,  37 
not  democratic,  177 
opposition  to  change,  347 
periods  of  history,  81 


Unionism,  prevalence  of,  5 
principle     of     development, 

80 
principle  of  uniformity,  344 
process  of  development,  98 
in  relation  to  the  law,  238 
social-psychological  view,  6 
source  of  success,  98 
a  storm  center,  22 
types,  37 

proof  of,  54  . 
ultimate  problem,  9,  30 
Unionism  and  syndicalism,  156 
Unionist,  business,  185 
Unionists,  anarchistic,   164 
assumptions  and  theories  of, 

284 
claims    of    benefits    to    em- 
ployers of,  258 
classes  of,  177 
estimate   of,   of   employers, 

258,  345 
not  systematic  theorists,  34, 

255,  279 
revolutionary,  163 
socialistic,  164 
theory    of,    on    injunctions, 

235 
See  also  Trade  Unionists 

United    Brotherhood   of    Car- 
penters and  Joiners,  129 

United     Mine     Workers     of 
America,  104,  129 
trade  agreement  interpreta- 
tion, 271,  274 

United  Order  of  Railway  Em- 
ployees, 106 

United    Textile    Workers    of 
America,  274 


426 


INDEX 


Unskilled  workers,  96,  97,  243, 

346 

Uplift  unionism,  47,  84 

Violence,  legal  definition,  232 

interpretation  of,  15 

not   mark   of   revolutionary 
unionism,  161 

when  resorted  to,  157 
Veblen,  Thorstein,  social  the- 
ory, 365 

Wage  contract,  224 
Wage  payment,  in  law,  225 
Wage    rates,    tendency    under 
scientific         management, 
322,  323 
Wages,  criticism  of  union  the- 
ory of,  283 
determination    of,    11,    256, 

260,  337 
effect  of  increase,  96 
standarization,  257 
standard  rate,  288,  289 
union  theory  of,  285 

maintenance  and  increase, 
293 


Walking  delegate,  182 
Welfare  work,  of    employers* 

association,  203 
Western   Federation   of   Min- 
ers, 49,  105,  158 
Western  Labor  Union,  105 
Woman's  International  Union 

Label  League,  129 
Work,  standardization,  257 
Worker,  legal  rights,  223 
bargaining  strength  of,  260 
common     interpretation     of 

social  situation  of,  58 
interests  of,  opposed,  95 
share    of,    in    products,    94, 

338 
social  viewpoint  of,  56 
unskilled,  96,  97,  243,  346 
Working      conditions,       law, 
225 
standardization  of,  257,  289 
Workingmen's     compensation, 

226 
Workingmen's  Party  of  Phila- 
delphia, 83 
Workingmen's  Protective 
Union,  84 


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